


Born to Fire

by mggislife2789



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels, Demons, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Ghouls, Monsters, Rowena MacLeod - Freeform, Spirits, Vampires, Vengeful Spirits, Werewolves, crowley - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-07-25 07:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 72,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16193210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: A full-length, series long AU of Supernatural with the addition of my original character, sister Bobbie Deanna Winchester, older sister to Dean and Sam. This will be AU in some respects, with me adding "jobs/cases" that are made up by me. In other ways, it will be AU because my character will be added in episodes from the show. Each chapter is an episode and is a work in progress. Enjoy! And please leave feedback.Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own any of this shit, it's just my brain after the credits roll.





	1. Chapter 1

Part 1 

I’m a big fan of books when I don’t have to pour over hours and hours of lore. Emerson and Shakespeare are two of my favorites. Actually, Emerson once said “the only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” Tell that to whatever cosmic entity fucked up the lives of my brothers and me. We keep deciding and ‘they’ keep knocking us off the path we ride.

Ask Sam and he’d tell you he’d make his own destiny. No one was in control but him. Ask Dean and he’d tell you destiny was bullshit.

Me on the other hand? I had to believe my brothers and I, our family, was destined for this. Whatever this even is. Otherwise I’d have no other way to justify the years of unrelenting anguish. Losing Mom. Losing Dad. Heaven. Hell. Torture. Separation. Loneliness. Guilt. So much fucking guilt. If it was destiny, it was palatable – at least for me, but without the drive of destiny behind all this…I would’ve put a bullet in my brain long ago. Boy do I wish we could go back to the good ol’ days. You know, your typical vampires, ghouls, ghosts and werewolves?

Then again, life has never been typical for us and our childhoods were lost before we’d even hit double digits. Again, if this wasn’t destiny, if this was all just happening and we have no say in anything at all, I’ll eat the butt of a gun.

I know the kind of person I want to be, but something about all this seems a little too out of my control.

***  
November 1981

“Should we say goodnight to Sammy?” Mary asked with her fingers clasped lightly around Bobbie’s hand. The young girl pulled away and carefully but quickly climbed into the crib to place a kiss on her littlest brother’s head. He’d only been here for six months, but everyone, even the neighbors they barely spoke with could see that the five-year-old girl would already do anything for him. She was a little mother-in-training. That wasn’t to say that Dean wouldn’t do the same. He was hovering around the littlest Winchester almost as much as Mary and his older sister.

With his mother’s help, Dean leaned into the mahogany crib and pecked the top of his baby brother’s head. “Goodnight, Sammy. Love you.”

Although it took another hour, promises to take them to the park in the morning and three bedtime stories, which Bobbie and Dean fought about of course, Mary finally got her eldest two to sleep. With the kids down for the night, she was able to go sleep herself (thankfully, so necessary), waking up just hours later to the white noise from the TV downstairs mixed with the rustling of Sam’s baby monitor. How had parents survived before baby monitors?

“John?” Mary was in bed alone again. He never had been able to sleep well. It was a perfect night, cool but not cold, no wind whatsoever – only the slight rumbling of thunder far off in the distance. A little abnormal for a November night actually. There was no reason he shouldn’t have been able to sleep, but that’s how he’d always been.

As she slipped out of the bedroom, sleep still heavy in her eyes she saw a flicker of light. At the end of the hallway, the light was flaring on and off. This house wasn’t all that old and they’d just recently replaced the light bulbs so she found it a bit odd. Some poking and prodding turned the light steady, but before she could go and find John, she got distracted by a sound coming from Sam’s room. 

When she opened the door, she saw her worst fear realized.

\---

Downstairs, John awoke to an ear-piercing scream in the direction of Sam’s room, but when he went to find his wife, she was nowhere to be found. “Hey, buddy,” he said softly, touching the top of the peaceful infant’s head. For a moment, he looked around for Mary before turning his attention back to his third, and final (definitely final, he was getting too old for this) child.

A small drop thudded onto the crib beside Sam’s head. It was liquid of some kind and was seeping into the sheets. Seriously? Was there already a leak in this roof? 

“What?” John asked aloud as his finger dragged across the drop and the copper smell began to fill his nostrils. A pit formed in his stomach as he looked up to see Mary pinned to the ceiling, a gash across her stomach and blood staining her flowing, white nightgown. “Mary!” 

Before he could process anything, fire began to bloom around her body; she was petrified in place but was all too aware of what was happening to her. He could see it in her eyes - the fear, the uncertainty, the guilt. Why guilt? An inherited family trait it seemed. Quickly, he turned toward the crib and grabbed Sam, running down the hallway to get his other two children to safety.

“Daddy!” Bobbie called. The little girl had bolted upright the second her mother had screamed. Dean followed closely behind, bewildered by the frightened look plastering his father’s face. His father was never scared. “Daddy, what’s wrong?”

Without a second thought, John shoved the six-month old into Bobbie’s arms. “Take your brothers outside as fast as you can. Don’t look back. Now, Bobbie!” 

She bolted down the stairs, gripping tightly onto her baby brother while glancing back over and over again to ensure Dean was still there. Her father was trusting her. She had to make sure the boys were safe. That was her job. “Bobbie, Mom and Dad?” Dean asked focusing his gaze on the steps as they moved toward the door and out into the cool November night. In his short little lifetime, he’d never seen his father or his sister more scared.

He stopped in his tracks for a second and searched for either of their parents before Bobbie grabbed him by the collar of his pajama shirt and dragged him outside. “I don’t know, but we have to go!” It was the moment her innocence was lost and she was forced to grow up before her time. 

Once outside, Bobbie and Dean stopped again and stared up at the house, jarred forward when John came running up behind them. “Move!”

It was just in time. The force of the explosion propelled the family toward the front of the lawn. It was probably for the best that the children didn’t see the horror unfold. They could remember what the house looked like, what their mother… 

John however looked back in horror. His wife. His home. Both gone. 

“Where’s Mommy?” Dean asked. His eyes were resting on Sam who was still resting somewhat peacefully in his sister’s arms.

“She’s dead,” Bobbie said softly, taking John off guard, before she burst into tears. “Mommy’s gone!” As a neighbor emerged from next door, Bobbie ripped the cross necklace off her collarbone, threw it on the cement and ran to him. She couldn’t look at her father; he’d told her that God would watch over them and keep them safe. God was nowhere around their house. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be. The God her parents had described wouldn’t have let this happen.

Three-year-old Dean had no idea what Bobbie really meant. Mom would be back in a while. He just knew it. “Where did Mommy go? Why did she leave?”

“I don’t know, Dean,” John said, his hand shaking as he held it to his mouth. “I…I don’t know.”

 

Present Day – 2002

“Don’t you dare sit your vamp gut covered ass in my beautiful Baby,” Dean yelled, his voice carrying through the grove of trees as Bobbie made her way toward the decades-old Impala. It was a thing of beauty, passed down to Dean, the car-lover of the three of them, but they were still no closer to finding John and after taking out a small nest of vampires on the California-Nevada border, they desperately needed a shower and a few hours sleep before heading out to get Sam at Stanford…hopefully. They really did need the extra pair of eyes.

Turning back, Bobbie sing-songed. “Oh looooook! I’m sitting down in the car! I’m covered in vamp guts. Oh, no, Baby’s gonna get so dirty.” Teasing Dean about the car was so much fun. It was astounding how much he loved this car and how he expected it to stay clean and safe and pretty given their line of work. As Dean stared her down, she flashed the cheesiest smile at him pointing at the dimples she’d never seemed to be able to lose.

In mock anger, Dean threw the car door open, silently apologizing to his one true love when the door bounced back and hit him in the ass. “I should kill you for defiling my Baby… Ass.”

“Bitch. I’d like to see you try.”

***

Hours after checking into their crappy motel, the two elder Winchesters checked out, showered and as well rested as they were ever going to be. “You look like hell,” Dean said sarcastically as they got into the car. The beds were like cardboard and there was a couple next door that really needed to keep that shit at home. No sleep was had.

“Aww. You’re one of the sweetest little brothers anyone could ask for,” she replied, her tight –lipped smile causing Dean to snort. “I slept like shit.” She was surprised he’d actually slept, given the noise next door, but then it occurred to her that there were a few extra bottles of beer on the nightstand this morning. Apparently, he’d knocked himself out.

“Same nightmare?” 

She spoke softly, almost drowned out by the roar of Baby’s engine and the gravel under her wheels. “Yea, both of them though.”

One was of the night their mother died. That much Dean knew. However, Bobbie had never shared the other with him and he knew better than to ask. She was open with him, almost to a fault and his annoyance. If she didn’t want to talk about it, there was a reason why and he didn’t want to press it. Plus, she was scary when she was pissy.

For nearly 40 miles, they sat in silence. It was hard to forget the things they went through –at least entirely. Actually, to forget it entirely was impossible, but zoning out on the open road ahead of them or the skyline of whatever city they happened to be passing through helped them to drown out the incessant noise in their heads for awhile. It was obvious to both that the other was thinking about something - something not all together pleasant – but it was Dean who broke the silence. This is why he blasted music. Silence left too much room for running thoughts, but after a mission or a case or whatever you wanted to call it Bobbie insisted on some quiet. “Why us?”

There couldn’t be a bigger question. It was always in the back of their minds but only after large swathes of silence did one of them ask the all-important inquiry. The silence took away the filter on their brains for some reason. “I don’t know, but I say it’s fate.”

“You believe in fate and destiny and all that crap?” Dean asked in surprise, shoving a slightly melted candy bar into his mouth. Bobbie was so grounded in reality, so good at getting the job done each and every time that it seemed out of the realm of reason for her to believe in something so indefinable as destiny. 

Shrugging, she faced her brother, who was of course driving the car because god forbid anyone else put their hands on Baby’s wheel. She could’ve commented on the chocolate he was getting on the wheel, speaking of defiling, but she didn’t have the energy for it. “I have to Dean. If I don’t, my head gets more fucked up than it already is. If what happened to us plays some part in some bigger plan, then I can make sense of it.”

“How? How does Mom dying in the middle of the night engulfed in flames and plastered to the ceiling make sense?”

She started kneading the side of her head with her knuckle, feeling another migraine coming on. “It doesn’t, but if what happened back then leads to something else, then my brain has a course to follow. A stupid course, a totally not fair course, but there’s a path. It’s fixed in that way in my head, so in my own way I can make sense of it. If I can’t make sense of it, then I put a bullet in my brain.”

Dean nearly slammed the brakes as they came to the red light. Oops. She did tend to say things she shouldn’t, overshare if you will, when she was in pain and tired. The cranky ramblings of a deranged hunter are what she tended to call it. “You’ve…?” He asked shakily, unable to keep his voice steady. She was his rock; the thought that she’d wanted to check out even just once made him anxious.

“Thought about blowing my brains out?” She asked. “With what we’ve gone through and what we do is that really a surprise to you?”

He cocked an eyebrow as he thought about it. It was understandable. They’d been through more bullshit in less than 30 years than most did in their entire lives, but in his mind, he’d just drink and whore himself to death eventually. Or go out in a bloody battle. One or the other. Probably one after the other. “I guess not.” In an instant everything Dean thought he knew about his sister was turned on its head. “So why us. If we were destined for this, which I think is bullshit by the way, why us?”

Nearly every second of every day had been spent trying to figure that out. “I don’t know, but the Winchesters were born to fire, Dean. I’m sure of it.“  
\----

Part 2 

“Okay, we’ve been silent for what feels like years and-“ Bobbie said, swatting Dean’s hand away from the cassette player. “And if I have to hear Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer one more time, I’m going to scream. We still have a few hours to go so let’s play a game.”

Dean groaned and turned to face her. How did he love someone so annoying so much? In his 24 years, he’d learned that’s basically what family was. A giant loving (hopefully) annoyance. “A game? Really?”

She started whining and bouncing up and down in her seat. And she was the older one? “Play with meeeeeee! Please?”

Grunting, Dean rolled his eyes, but indulged her. He hated games but they made Bobbie smile. It was so rare that she was truly happy. “Okay, what game?”

“How about would you rather?”

“Alright, I can get behind that. I can make it dirty and let my mind wander.”

Bobbie laughed. “What? Your mind isn’t in the gutter all the time already?”

“Good point.”

For more than an hour, the two went back and forth and learned quite a lot about each other. Dean would rather vacation in the Caribbean (cute bikini-clad women), while Bobbie would prefer backpacking across Europe. Who wouldn’t want to scale the Fjords of Norway? Ever since she was young, she wanted to see the world. On the other hand Bobbie preferred going back in time to meet Shakespeare, while Dean would go into the future because of course the future would have beautiful android women and flying Impalas. He would never let go of the Impala. Across space and time, Baby was his soulmate.

Toward the end of the game, just as Dean had foretold, his brain went dirty. What a surprise. He’d rather have his body found on a pile of sex toys rather than a pile of drugs. Again, what a shocker. And he’d rather get caught in the bedroom right at the penultimate moment than get caught kissing a blowup doll. Understandable if Bobbie did say so herself. 

“Alright, what about you? What’s more horrifying to you?” Dean asked as he turned onto the final stretch of highway before Stanford. “The idea of walking in on Mom and Dad doing it, or them walking in on you?”

Bobbie cleared her throat and turned to face Dean. “Who says one of those hasn’t happened to me already?”

“No!” He screamed, his eyes going wide as he tried to suppress his laughter and keep his focus on the road. “Dad walked in on you?” Oh, to be a fly on the wall. Dean would’ve loved to see the look on his father’s face.

Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the headrest and smiled at the memory. It had been embarrassing as all hell at the time, and truly infuriating, but now it was just funny. “You remember Nicholas Padilla? Emo band guy from that school we went to in Missouri for like three months?” It stood out in her mind because of Padilla and the fact that they’d actually stayed still for three months – it was one of the longest spans of time they’d had in one place. 

“Him? Oh my god, Dad must’ve wanted to kill him.”

“Oh, he was close. I stopped him though. We got into an enormous fight that spiraled out of control.”

Just as Dean was about to ask what they’d fought about besides the obvious, Bobbie got a text message. “What’s that about?” He asked. She was smiling from ear to ear.

“Sammy got a 174 on his LSAT.”

“LSAT? Law school?”

“Entrance exam, Dean. He got a 174 out of 180.” Sammy had always been the smartest of the three of them – at least in the book sense. Though she missed him and felt that he was probably trying to run away from what the family was, Bobbie was immensely proud of him. Always had been and always would be no matter what their lives were destined or not destined to be.

Dean looked hurt for a split second before he shook it off, hoping that his sister didn’t see. “He never told me he was going to law school?” 

“Well, if I remember correctly, you and Dad were both gigantic assholes to him when he left for college, so he tends not to text you these things.” Sam was at one end of the spectrum, denying hunting and their past entirely, never to mention it to anyone he cared about ever again if he could help it. Their father and Dean made this life their entire identities and Bobbie was somewhere in the middle. Always in the middle. Ironic considering she was the oldest. 

Dean went silent the rest of the way. He might have been pissed that Sam left the family behind, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t proud of him.

“Here we are,” he said. It was nearly midnight, but Sam was a college kid, so he was probably awake. Right? “Let’s go get him. We need to get a move on.”

They’d been behind their father for weeks now. Three to be exact. Bobbie hoped she could convince Sammy to join them. 

After jimmying up the window, Dean slipped into Sam’s apartment with Bobbie close behind. She’d never been to college, but his place looked like she imagined hers would have. A complete and total mess with a bunch of books scattered all over the place. Looked about right. All of a sudden, Dean was barreled over and knocked to the floor. In the dark, she couldn’t tell who it was, but in all likelihood it was Sam and of course the two jumped to the conclusion of beating the living crap out of each other. “Hey! Hey! Hey!” Bobbie bellowed. “Sammy, it’s us. It’s me and Dean.”

“Bobbie? Dean? What are you doing here?” It was so nice to hear his voice again. She wanted him to live to life he dreamed of, but she couldn’t deny how much she missed him on the road.

From somewhere else in the apartment, a young blonde emerged wearing a smurfs t-shirt and adorable pink boxers. “Sam?”

“Hey, Jess. Sorry we woke you. This is Dean and Bobbie. Guys, this is my girlfriend, Jessica.” Once again, Bobbie was already aware of her youngest brother’s girlfriend though they’d never met. However, Dean was caught off guard again.

“Your brother and sister?”

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Bobbie said, stepping forward to shake her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You too,” she replied with a smile. 

As he strutted up to her, Bobbie could see the change in Dean’s demeanor. If there was a pretty girl around, Dean was Mr. Confident. He pretended to be Mr. Confident all the time, but it was only with a girl on his arm or a gun in his hand that he truly felt that way. “You are so out of my brother’s league,” he said smoothly. 

“Let me put something on.” There was nothing wrong with her pajamas, but Bobbie could imagine being a little embarrassed about being seen in pajamas by the family of the guy you were seeing. 

“I wouldn’t even dream of it. Seriously.”

“Dean!” Bobbie smacked her brother in the back of the head.

“What?”

She cut her eyes at him and hoped that it would make her point. Thankfully, he seemed to get the message. “Could you give us a minute? The three of us have to talk about something private family business.”

Sam stiffened at the mention of family and walked over to Jessica’s side to wrap his arm around her. “No, whatever you have to say you can say in front of her.”

He was already tired of the way Sam was acting, like he just didn’t care about anything but that normal life that would never truly be his. “Dad has been gone for a couple of days and we haven’t heard anything from him.”

“He’s probably just lost cell service or something. I’m sure he’ll be back in a couple of days,” Sam said, rather unconvincingly. Running. Always running Sammy was.

Bobbie could see the tension rising in Dean’s body, so she grasped him by the shoulder and gave him a slight squeeze. Sam had to know that she wouldn’t have had them drive all the way here if it was as simple as that. “Dad’s on a hunting trip,” she repeated emphatically, “And he hasn’t been home in a couple of days.”

That’s when it clicked. “Jess, can you give us a couple of minutes?”

***  
On the way down to the car, the tension mounted between the three of them. Dean and Sam, though they loved each other more than anything, constantly butted heads, and Bobbie always had and probably always would play mediator. She understood both of them. The curse of empathy. Who developed that concept anyway? Was that another invention of the God that abandoned her and her family? 

“You can’t just break in in the middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you,” Sam finally said when they hit the staircase in his complex. Bobbie could see this getting heated quickly, but she was hoping to keep the noise to a minimum. After all, it was the middle of the night.

Dean’s exasperation could be felt in each punctuated word. “You don’t get. He’s gone. We need you to help us find him.”

Sam listed a thousand and one (okay three) separate times where John had been caught up on a hunting trip but made it back, and yes that was true. “He’s never been gone this long, Sammy. We could use the extra pair of eyes. Are you gonna help us or not?”

It was harder for him to say no to Bobbie, but this was what he’d wanted for so long – to get away from the uncertainty of a hunter’s life. “I can’t Bobbie.”

“Can’t or won’t,” Dean huffed. He rushed down the stairs and out toward the Impala with Sam following guiltily and yet defiantly behind. 

This is why they’d drifted apart as a family over the past few years. Though they loved each other, Bobbie and Dean were resigned to this life, not really knowing what else to do, but Sam had always held out that hope of getting away, and now he was, so as much as they did need his help, Bobbie didn’t really blame him for not wanting to get sucked back in. “Won’t. I swore I was done with this.”

“We’ve had some bad run-ins, but it wasn’t all bad,” Dean said.

Sam rested his hand on the Impala, his stand on not going wavering with every second. “Wasn’t all bad? Bobbie, you remember what dad said to me when I told him I was afraid there was a monster under my bed?”

“He gave you .45.”

“What else was he supposed to do?” Dean asked, voice rising in pitch. 

“Tell me not to worry? Tell me that things were going to be okay? I don’t know. That I shouldn’t be afraid of the dark? Things other parents do.”

Bobbie got it. She really did. As a matter of fact, she’d had fights with her father on numerous occasions about her lost childhood, but given the knowledge he had he’d done the best he could at the time – even if his best wasn’t all that great. “But you know what’s out there, Sammy.”

“Yea, I do, but what happened to our childhoods, Bobbie. I mean, we barely stayed in one area for more than a couple of weeks. We were in and out of schools. We never got the chance to make friends. We were raised like warriors on shooting ranges and in karate dojos learning self defense and the best ways to survive out in the wild and how to melt silver into bullets when you should’ve been going to prom and I should’ve been trying out for the football team.”

“You would’ve been on the debate team and you know it,” Bobbie said with a smile.

Sam bit his lip in an attempt not to smile. “Exactly. Dad’s obsession to find the thing that killed Mom ruined our lives. I’m doing things my way now.”

“It did. I’ll give you that. But it is what it is and we help people now. We can’t change the past and dad’s in trouble.” Sam’s last fight with their father before leaving for college was particularly heated. He’d basically told Sammy not to come home if he was just going to leave hunting and his family behind. Sammy unfortunately listened and now Bobbie was the only one he spoke to consistently.

With a sigh, he relented and Bobbie felt a glimmer of hope that even if he didn’t hunt for a living, they and their father might be able to patch things up. “What was he hunting?”

The three of them bent down to peer into the Impala. “Don’t know,” Dean replied, picking out a pile of papers, but these are all men who’ve gone missing from the same 5 mile stretch of road over the past 15 years. No evidence is ever left behind. Dad went to check it out three weeks ago while Bobbie and I were taking care of small vamp nest and we haven’t heard from him since.”

“Dad let you two go off on your own?” Sam asked impressed.

Bobbie flashed her million-watt smile. “I’m 26, baby brother. And I’m amazing at what I do.”

Dean pointed at himself. “And what about me? I suck?”

“You’re pretty good too.”

He punched her lightly in the arm and pulled on his phone. “Three weeks would’ve been bad enough, but then we got this.”

It was a very static-filled message that was definitely from their father but they couldn’t make out much else. “There’s EVP on that,” Sam said.

“Good,” Bobbie said, patting him on the back. “Like riding a bike. When we filtered it out, this is what you get.”

I can never go home.

It was soft and feminine, but unmistakably ethereal.

Now that they’d convinced Sammy that something was wrong, she needed to get him to help. Her, not Dean. He wasn’t going to listen to him right now. She saw his hesitation. He’d mentioned in a brief text that he had an interview to get into Stanford Law on the coming Monday. “Sammy, look I know you have that interview on Monday. Help us for the weekend and we’ll get you back by then?”

“Okay, Monday morning,” he reiterated. “Let me go pack some things.”

After stuffing a few changes of clothes in his bag and convincing Jessica that he would be back in time for his interview on Monday morning, the Winchester trio made their way toward Jericho, California where John had last been. At first, Bobbie was convinced that the car ride was going to feel treacherously long with all of the not talking that was happening, but then she put on some music and started singing.

“Really?” Sam asked from the backseat. “Africa by Toto?”

“Excuse me, what is wrong with Africa by Toto?” Dean prodded. It was lucky for his sister that they had the same taste in music because normally he chose. 

“It’s a classic, Sammy. Now sing! It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you. There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do. I bless the rains down in Africa. Gonna take some time to do the things we never had!”

On the road together was where they all belonged. Even if Sammy wasn’t going to stay for more than a couple days, she’d revel in it. It felt nice to have them both in the same place again.  
\----

Part 3

Centennial Highway at night was just about the creepiest thing in the entire world, but once he got home he had Amy’s bed to climb into so he had the motivation to move quickly. Granted, his dad was probably going to kick his ass for ditching out on their plans together, but…Amy. 

As he peeled down the highway and hung up the phone, Troy’s attention snapped to the side of the road where a young woman about his age, maybe a little older, stood staring longingly in the direction he was driving. The fog was thick, hanging heavily in the air, so he wondered what she was staring so intently at. She was wearing a white nightie-looking dress and was way to young and pretty to be out on this highway so late at night. “Are you lost? Car trouble?” He wondered. The last thing he wanted to do was leave a vulnerable girl out on the highway at night all alone.

She bent down and into the car window, her neckline showing more than he was comfortable with but he couldn’t peel his eyes away; God, she was stunning. “Take me home?” She asked sweetly. A small smile crept its way onto her face as she slipped into the passenger seat into the heated car on this cold night. 

“A girl like you shouldn’t be alone out here,” he said, eyes darting from the steering wheel to the curve of her breasts. Was he insane or was she coming onto him? Oh no, she was definitely coming on to him.

Her head fell to the side as she spoke, barely above a whisper, her hands not-so-discreetly hiking up the hem of her dress around her thighs. “I’m not alone. I’m with you…Will you come home with me?”

Troy sped down the highway as fast as he could in the direction the girl had pointed. He didn’t even know her name, but she was gorgeous and wanted him to ‘take her home.’ He was a red-blooded, young American man. Who would pass up that opportunity?

When they pulled up, he scoffed in disbelief. “You don’t live here, do you?”

“I can never go home.”

“What are you talking about? No one lives here.” At least he hoped not. The wood the house was made from looked like it was seconds from falling. The grass, though sparse, was coated in dew. The silence surrounding them was deafening. Turning to face her seat, he found it empty and stepped out of the car and looked around. “This isn’t funny.” His heart jumped into his throat. He was all alone out here.

He approached the doorway to the dilapidated house when a bat flew at his head. Without thinking about her or her offer or what the hell was even going on, he ran back toward the car and sped off, taking a deep breath when he was out of range of the house.

But as he glanced in the back mirror, he saw her eyes again.

***  
By morning, they’d hit Jericho and stopped for gas and some pick-me-up food, which meant a candy bar for Dean (how he was still fit Bobbie didn’t know), a disgustingly greasy breakfast sandwich for Bobbie (she needed protein if she was going to be beating the shit out of ghouls, ghosts and goblins) and a banana for Sam. In addition to being the smart one, he was the healthy one. Some supernatural shit was going to kill them, not calories, so why not indulge every now and then.

“How did you pay for that?” He asked. “Still running the credit card scams?”

Bobbie raised her eyebrows and shrugged, biting down into the sausage and egg and feeling the grease run down her chin. It was a wonder she didn’t have acne honestly. “Hunting doesn’t exactly pay the bills. Afhraim’s the last name this time. We’re at the end of rope on this name though. Probably going to have to ditch it soon. Hey Dean, hurry up!”

As he slunk into the driver’s seat, he reached over to the box of cassette tapes Sam was holding in his lap. 

“It’s like the best of hair metal in here,” he quipped.

“And it’s awesome. Driver picks the music. Shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

Barely 15 minutes later, they passed a bridge where a couple of cop cars had been parked. “Time to roll boys.” This is when she truly felt like she was in her element. Bobbie reached over Sam and pulled the fake IDs from the glove compartment, passed them around and got out of the car, relaxed as she approached the local force. “Had another one like this recently right?”

“And you are?”

“Federal Marshals,” she replied. The three of them flashed their badges in quick succession, addressing the locals quickly when she sensed their doubt. “I’m the senior and these are my trainees.” She could practically hear Dean cutting his eyes at her. She loved playing the seniority card with him. “You did have another case like this right?”

They had just recently, plus more than 10 others over the past 15 years. The prevailing theory at the department was that it was a serial killer or a kidnapping ring. Human horrors. Supernatural horrors. They were all the same deep down and all too prevalent. After Dean stupidly insulted the officers, they headed out and toward a local motel to get their bearings and figure out where to head from there. 

“Why do you have to do that?” Sam asked.

“What?”

“Insult the police!”

“Because they have no idea what’s going on.”

“They shouldn’t have to,” Bobbie interjected. Not everyone deserved to be as fucked up as they were. If the entire world learned about the supernatural, it would implode within a day. Max.

***  
A couple of hours after running into the officers, they were able to track down Troy’s girlfriend Amy.

“If you can tell us anything that might help us find Troy, please,” Sam said. He had a lightness and sweetness in his voice that could convince the almost inconvincible. 

He saw the hesitation in her eyes. “What is it?”

“There’s this legend,” she said.

There was the clincher. Anytime someone claimed ‘no one would believe them’ or ‘there was this urban legend’ a hunter knew they were on the right track. “It basically goes that a girl got murdered on Centennial Highway. She’s still there, vengeful - so she hitchhikes. The ones that pick her up are never seen again.”

After paying for the sodas they’d all gotten, Bobbie, Sam and Dean headed toward the local library. Of course Dean got into the chair first and was stabbing angrily at the keyboard when he kept typing things into the search engine that yielded no results. 

“Move over,” Sam said, pushing Dean’s chair out of the way. They went back and forth pushing at each other while Bobbie laughed in the background. It was like she was 10 all over again. “Angry spirits are born from a violent death right?”

“Yea.”

“Then maybe it wasn’t murder.” Instead, he looked up Centennial Highway suicide, which led them to one Constance Welch, a 24-year-old mother of two who claimed that one night when her kids were in the bath she looked away for a brief moment and when she turned back she found them dead. Full of guilt, she jumped off the nearest bridge to her death.

Bobbie felt a gnawing in the pit of her stomach. Something about Constance’s story didn’t sit right and she had a feeling she already knew what it was. “We need to go back to the bridge.”

By the time they arrived, the sun had already set and once again the town took on an eerie glow. Despite that, Bobbie wasn’t worried. After growing up in this life, there was a beautiful essence to eeriness. “So this is where she took the dive,” Dean said, staring down at the water. “Dad had to be here. He was chasing this and we’re chasing him. Could take us a while to find him.”

Sam and Dean started bickering back and forth about Sam going for this interview, running from who he was or at least who he’d been especially when their dad was in trouble. “You haven’t told Jessica?” Bobbie asked. “And you’re gonna keep it from her? Forever? Sounds super healthy.”

“Shut up.” He mumbled.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Constance on the bridge just before she jumped. “Where’d she go?”

***

The motel nearby was just about as glamorous as every other one they’d been in over the course of the past month, but the difference this time was that another Afrhaim had checked in about five days ago and booked a room for the entire month. The clerk didn’t want to let them in, but when they told him he was their father, he relented. When they entered the elder man’s room, they knew it was John and that he’d been onto something.

There was salt around the room, articles on the walls – all victims from Centennial Highway. “Dad was definitely here,” Dean said, inhaling the scent of a days’ old hamburger and nearly gagging. 

“What did you expect, dumbass?”

“I don’t care if you’re my big sister. Bite me.”

“Guys, he found the same article we did,” Sam said. “She’s a Woman in White.”

Well, that explained a lot. And it further reinforced that feeling Bobbie had had back at the library. “Dad would’ve dug her up and burned the body. Article say where she was buried?” They hadn’t worked together in quite some time, but everything flowed between them.

“Nope,” Sam replied, “But if I were Dad, I’d ask her husband. We can go after Dean takes a freakin’ shower. He smells like a toilet.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

***

With clean clothes and freshly-soaped skin, Dean went to grab some food at the diner down the street when he was spotted by the cops they’d met the previous day at the crime scene. Before they could approach him, he pulled out his phone and called his sister. 

“What’s up?”

“Dude, 5-0. Take off.

“Shit. What about you?” Dean always managed to get himself out of trouble, but she still worried. As the older sister, she was eternally cursed to so many things, the least of which was living in a constant state of worry over the boys she loved more than her own life.

“I’ve got my ways,” he assured. “Go. Hurry.”

Sam’s head snapped in her direction when she flipped the phone closed. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ve gotta go. Dean’s been spotted.”  
\----

Part 4

This was ridiculous. Sitting in the middle of the stagnant station, surrounded by papers and small-time officers was a waste of his time. He should be out there.

He realized these people were just doing their jobs, but Dean couldn’t help laughing as he was brought into the station. That usually caused more trouble, but he couldn’t help it. Of course with the articles they’d found taped to the walls of the hotel room, he did look guilty as hell, but that was only because they didn’t know the things his family did. “I don’t think you know how much trouble you’re in son,” the chief said.

“Mmm, trouble,” he said, begging his mind to shut up as the words came tumbling out. “Misdemeanor kind or don’t-bend-over-for-the-soap kind?” He really needed to think before he spoke. The tendency to word vomit was strong in him.

The chief was exasperated - like he was way too tired for this shit after too many years of this shit. “Cute. So Dean,” he said pointedly, taking the younger man off guard. He’d never told them his name. “Recognize this?”

Shit.

It was their father’s journal. It held lore for every being he’d ever faced, including ways to kill it, sometimes along pictures and ciphers and codes that only made sense if you were in the life. He never left without it. Something was really, really wrong. 

***

As soon as Sam and Bobbie snuck out the window of the bathroom of the motel, they made their way to Constance’s former husband. He had some explaining to do. The youngest and oldest of the Winchester children had a very plausible theory, but they needed confirmation. “Hi,” Bobbie said as he cracked open the door. “Are you Joseph Welch?”

Warily, he opened the door and stepped out, taking a picture from Sam of the four of them from when they were kids. All of them were smiling. It was the day after the fourth of July when Bobbie was 10; it was one of her favorite family memories. She had the same picture in her wallet. “Have you seen him?”

“Yea, he’s a bit older,” the husband said gruffly. “But that’s him. He said he was a reporter.”

Sam confirmed. Despite his being the youngest and not wanting this life, he took naturally to it. “We’re working on a story. Can we just ask you a couple questions?” 

Joseph was less than enthused. “Do I have to do this again?”

“Fact checking,” Bobbie said, which technically was true. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Constance was buried near their old place according to Joseph, which meant that in all likelihood John had already salted and burned her body. Of course they’d check, but it was the natural order of things. 

After his kids had died, Joseph never wanted to step into the house again and he never remarried. Bobbie couldn’t shake her gut feeling though. It made her angry so she stepped back to let Sam continue the inquisition. “Constance was the love of my life.”

Right. Sure she was.

“Thanks for your time,” Sam said with an appreciative nod. 

Bobbie was five steps away from the car when her anger got the better of her. “Mr. Welch, have you ever heard of a Woman in White?”

“A what?” It was basically understood that you didn’t tell ‘civilians’ about the supernatural because in all likelihood they’d think you were crazy, but she couldn’t stop herself.

Bobbie started explaining, attempting to keep her emotions in check. “It’s a phenomenon, a ghost story if you will. They’ve been around for hundreds of years and been spotted all over the world.” Her voice started to shake as she approached him again. If her suspicions were confirmed that didn’t mean that Constance wasn’t culpable, but she would’ve definitely been driven by outside factors. He turned away and attempted to walk back to his home, but she kept talking. “They all have one thing in common though. During their lives, their husbands or boyfriends were unfaithful to them and in a moment of temporary insanity they killed their children and then themselves. They’re cursed now and whenever they find and pick up another unfaithful man, they kill him.”

His eyes pierced into hers when he turned around again, minute ticks in the muscles around his mouth showing just how much he hated being so accurately picked apart. Suspicions confirmed. “You think that has something to do with Constance?” The shakiness in his voice, the ‘mistakes’ he made, Bobbie didn’t need to hear it. And she sure as hell didn’t want to. His eyes told the whole story. “Get out,” he spat. “And don’t come back.”

“What was that?” Sam asked when she made her way back to the car. “We already knew.”

“Some of these vengeful spirits get a bad reputation,” she said, her mouth dry from anger mixed with the dirt floating through the air around Welch’s house. “Don’t get me wrong, what Constance is doing is not okay, but somebody else should be culpable. He should know what his betrayal did to her. Maybe if he’d kept it in his fucking pants she’d still be here and we’d be halfway across the country.”

***  
Back at the station, Dean tried to convince the chief for the 100th time that the code he’d found, 35-111, was his high school locker combination. It was apparent that the chief wasn’t buying it, but then a 911 call came in and caused everyone to leave the station. Dean was left alone, handcuffed to the table with the journal and a handy-dandy paperclip for lock-picking within his grasp. It only took a few minutes for him to get out of the cuffs and near a payphone a couple blocks away from the station. “Hey, Sam. Fake 911 call? Pretty illegal. Was that you or Bobbie?”

“You’re welcome,” he laughed, catching his sister’s surprised face in the passenger’s seat. He’d made the call when she was grilling Joseph Welch so it came as a surprise to her. “Listen, the husband was unfaithful, so we’re definitely dealing with a Woman in White and she was buried behind her house so that probably would’ve been Dad’s next stop.”

“Would you shut up for a minute? Dad’s gone.”

“What?” Bobbie blurted out. “How do you know?”

The journal. And like any good ex-marine he’d left coordinates for them to follow to another case who the hell knew where. “Woah, Sam look out!” She cried.

On the road ahead among the mist, stood a woman in white clothing.

*** 

Sam smashed his foot down on the brakes, the sound of Baby’s wheels screeching against the pavement getting louder and louder until they came to a stop. Looking in the rearview mirror, Bobbie saw her in the backseat, but she wasn’t paying any attention to her at all; she was looking at Sam. “Take me home.”

“No.”

Before either of them could bail out of the car, Constance bolted down the locks and steered them down the road. It took less than two minutes to get to her home, which was beaten down by years of the elements and no upkeep. With the stories floating around the small town, no one wanted to step anywhere near it to take care of it or even to demolish it all together. “Don’t do this,” Sam spoke.

Bobbie caught her eye as she looked wistfully toward the house. What she wouldn’t have given to bring Constance’s attention toward her instead of her baby brother. No matter how routine a case was, no matter whether they all knew how to handle things or not, she loathed having Dean and Sam in danger more than anything else in the world.

“I can never go home.”

“You’re scared to go home,” Bobbie realized in sudden understanding. 

The heat flared in the spirit’s eyes and in the blink of her lashes she was in the front seat, pushing Bobbie out of the side of the car and locking it again. She wanted Sam alone. 

As she rolled out of the car, Bobbie hit her head on a rock and stumbled for a brief moment before finding her footing. The condensation on the windows obstructed her view, but it was as clear as day. The young woman was sitting on top of her brother, trying to coax unfaithfulness out of him in an attempt to justify killing him.

“No fucking way,” Bobbie muttered. “No one gets to kill him but me.”

Reaching to the small of her back, she clasped her Beretta 92 Combat and aimed at the spirit. Since her body was already burned, the bullets wouldn’t do anything, but if she could distract her long enough for Sam to get away that was all that mattered. The scream he let out as her hand pierced his chest threw Bobbie off and she nearly missed, blinking away the uncertainty before taking aim again. 

Just as the woman seemed to disappear, Dean showed up, gun at the ready. In the split second it took Dean to ask what was going on, Sam sat up and drove the Impala into the old house. 

Ohhhh, Dean was going to be mad.

“Sammy!” Bobbie screamed. 

Dean bolted into the house and stuck his head in the car. For how much he loved that thing, Sam mattered more. “You okay?”

“Yea, I think I’m fine.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Bobbie’s thoughts exactly. 

“I took her home.”

Sam was forever the gentleman.

Dean pried the door open and held out his hand for Sam, yanking him out and clapping him on the back. Bobbie ran to him, wrapping her arms around him before pulling back to smack his chest. “Don’t do that again! You scared me!”

“Sorry, Mom,” he laughed. Sad thing was that was basically what she was to him. He was way too young to have formed any lasting memories of their mother. 

A crack of glass behind them caused them all to snap to attention again. She was back. Dipping down, she picked up an ornate, gold picture frame from the floor that held a picture of her with her two children. They were the picture perfect family torn apart by indiscretion and a moment of insanity. Tragic didn’t even begin to cover it. 

When she looked their way, the heat in her eyes could have melted them on the spot. This is why she couldn’t come home. She could never bring up the nerve to confront her kids about what she did to them. Bobbie couldn’t help but think that their father owed them a big, fat apology too. If just a few decisions had been made differently, this could’ve been avoided and this little family might have been saved. It was such a stupid, fucked up mess. Good thing they specialized in exactly that.

As the lights flickered in the small house, Constance stepped out of the way and sent the vintage dresser into them, pinning the siblings against the passenger side doors of the Impala. Instinct told Bobbie to push the drawer out of the way and do something and Sam sensed it, grabbing her arm to hold her back. 

She wasn’t focused on them anymore. Constance’s gaze had been drawn up the stairs. At first they couldn’t figure out what it was and they didn’t want to move and draw her attention back to them, but then they heard it.

“You’ve come home to us, Mommy.”

In the silence of the house, the ghosts of Constance’s children appeared at her side and fixed their eyes on her. In them Bobbie could see the unconditional love of children. There was no hatred there. They didn’t seem to be mad at what had happened. Could they see the guilt in their mother’s eyes?

Before she could back away, they grabbed her by the arms, sending an ear-shattering scream throughout the house. It had been over a decade since she’d been able to look them in the eye and the pain in her scream said it all. In an instant, Constance and her children were gone.

Without the supernatural entities to keep the dresser in place, Dean, Bobbie and Sam pushed it off of them and walked toward the area where she’d vanished. “That’s why she couldn’t go home,” Sam said. “She was too scared to face what she did.”

“I didn’t seem like her kids were all that mad,” Bobbie replied. It was astonishing the love a child could have for a parent even under the worst of circumstances. 

Dean took a deep breath and turned away. The wheels in his mind were already turning. One job was done – onto the next. “If Dad’s not here, then where?” Sam and Bobbie replied with silence. When they did find him, Bobbie was going to have it out with him. If he was alive and just not responding, he was a dead man. 

As Dean glanced over the Impala. “Sam, if you screwed up my car, I’ll kill you.”

“What?” He exclaimed. “We solved the problem, didn’t we?”

\----

Part 5

Finally, after nearly a week of camping out in the motel room, she, Dean and Sammy were free again. Dad was back. He’d been hunting down a werewolf and refused help from Bobbie even though she knew just as much about werewolves as her dad if not more. She was constantly reading about them. But no, instead she had to stay back and babysit her brothers. Whatever, what’s done is done.

When John stopped the car on the side of the road, she thought for a second that he might already have another case and they’d have to find another motel room to crash in. “Stay here for a second. I’ll be right back,” he said to the three lights of his life. 

“What’s going on?” Dean asked.

“Just, trust me.”

Easier said than done. Something told Bobbie she wasn’t supposed to be so jaded at 10.

All three of them watched as John went into the trunk of the car and then walked out into the middle of the field. “Come on out,” he called. “All of you, come on!”

Bobbie popped out of the front seat and went around to Sammy’s side of the car to unbuckle his seatbelt for him. Dean was already sprinting toward their father, jumping up and down and asking what was happening. By the smile on John’s face, it seemed like it was something good, but none of them could ever be sure.

Pulling a lighter out of his pocket, John bent down and gathered his children around before lighting a rocket of some kind. It took two seconds to shoot off into the sky and explode, lighting up the night with red sparkles and a loud pop. “Fireworks!” Dean screamed.

Bobbie sat on the grass even though it was wet from a passing rainstorm and pulled Sammy into her lap as Dean ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. One by one, John set off every firework he had. Good thing the case had been in the middle of nowhere because the sound of cracking fireworks was sure to draw attention in a more densely populated town. “You want sparklers?” He asked, turning around to face his youngest and oldest.

“Yea,” Sam said happily but warily, hand outstretched. Once he saw the pretty blue color, he went running after Dean.

“Got a green one?” Bobbie asked.

“For my girl, absolutely,” John replied, handing over the specially picked sparkler. “Go have fun.”

“Thanks, Dad.” He made her so angry sometimes, but she loved him.

“You’re welcome, kiddo.”

***

“It was coordinates,” Dean said from his rightful place in Baby’s driver’s seat. “He’s headed to Blackwater Ridge, Colorado. Or he was. If we haul ass, we could get there by morning.”

Sam said nothing, but his sister knew exactly what he was thinking and thankfully, she was the one to bring it up to Dean. “He has the interview in 10 hours.”

“Oh yea,” he replied disgruntledly. He wanted to lay the guilt on Sam but Bobbie would probably smack him in the back of the head again. “Alright, alright. Let’s get you back.”

Even though Dean had absolutely no desire to bring Sam back to the life he was deluding himself into thinking he could have, the three of them managed to have an okay ride back. Dean and Bobbie recounted their rousing game of would you rather for Sam, who couldn’t believe that his older sister had been caught in bed with a random boy by their father. “How old was I?”

“I was 18, so I guess that made you 13 at the time.”

Sam snorted as he pictured the anger on their father’s face. “Amazing. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

“Me too,” she laughed.

***

A few hours later, they arrived at Sam’s apartment. Though Dean never liked ‘chick-flick’ moments, he found himself in them more often than not. “We made a good team back there.”

“We always do,” Sam replied softly. He enveloped Bobbie in his arms and thanked her again for being behind him despite it all when the rest of the family wouldn’t.

With one final look back, Sam headed up the stairs and into the apartment, the sound of running water from the shower welcoming him home. He did miss his brother and sister, but that life was not for him, not anymore. No matter how good he was at it. 

The woman he loved was in the shower and he had an interview for a full-ride scholarship to a top law school in a couple of hours. In the near silence, he moved over to his bed and plopped down, closing his eyes as he laid back into the softness of his well-worn mattress and tousled blankets.

When a drop of liquid hit his head, he ignored it at first. He didn’t want to deal with whatever leak there was in his ceiling. Granted he wouldn’t have to deal with it, the landlord would, but either way it just felt nice to be back in his place after the weekend he’d had.

Another drop landed and then another in quick succession. He gasped when he opened his eyes. “No! Jess!” He bellowed.

How? 

How was she up there?

His father had only told the story of how he found their mother once, but it was permanently scarred into his brain and now here he was living it out again with the only woman he’d ever loved. As the slash across her stomach slowly oozed a crimson pool, she locked eyes on his. 

How could you? Why didn’t you warn me?

“No!” He roared.

Bobbie kicked the door open and ran after her brother. She didn’t even need to look at the ceiling to know what had happened. History was repeating itself, because the Winchesters were never allowed a break. “Sammy! We have to go!”

He wrenched against her grasp, desperately wanting to save the last bit of normalcy he had, but she was gone. This must’ve been how their father had felt the night their mother died.

“Sam!” Dean yelled, joining Bobbie in her attempt to move Sam out of the apartment. “Sam, I’m sorry, but move!”

Finally, he turned around, tears filling his eyes as he ran down the stairs and out of the complex toward the street. “What just happened?” Dean asked.

The entirety of the complex came flooding out while Sam’s floor bloomed underneath the fiery inferno that was their lives. “Why?”

Whatever had killed their mother killed Jessica too. What conspiracy was this? Why were the being followed by hell at every turn? Why couldn’t they just catch a break? “Sammy, I’m so sorry,” Bobbie whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why did you come back?” 

Bobbie inhaled sharply as she tried to hold back a sob and failed. “I didn’t tell you how proud I was of you and I wanted to tell you in person, not over the phone, so I made Dean drive back.” Everything he’d ever worked for flamed up in an instant. 

Sam turned around and stormed off unable to gain control of his emotions. As the authorities pulled up, he lost it, screaming into his hands like a man – well, like a man who’d just lost everything. He was going to have to lie to the police about how he saw the woman he loved engulfed by flames. “This can’t be destiny, Bobbie,” Dean said, eyes glued to the building before him. “What did we do to deserve this?”

“How can you think this isn’t destiny? They were killed by the same thing. There has to be a reason why.” Right? After all they’d been through, she didn’t have much faith anymore, but life seemed to be hinting at something larger than just them. If these so-called gods were real and she ever met them, she’d probably earn herself a ticket straight down to hell.

***  
Within the hour, the fire department had doused the flames leaving plumes of smoke to be sent into the chill of the early morning. The elder two siblings left Sam to mourn as they were too fixed in place by the night’s events to do anything anyway. They kept turning over everything that had happened trying to figure out why, but no answers came. It didn’t make any sense. 

Eyes puffy from crying, Bobbie walked over to Sam’s side, breaking down once again when he flinched at her touch. “I’m sorry,” she said. She was supposed to keep them safe. Keep them from harm. How had this happened? 

Sam stared into the trunk, firmly focused on what needed to be done. He was probably playing right into this entity’s hands by going with his brother and sister. He should probably just pick up and continue on with life as normal, but he couldn’t; he wanted revenge. He wanted to look whatever this was in the eyes when he stabbed it. He wanted this thing to know that he had screwed with the wrong man. With Dean on his opposite side, he slammed the trunk closed. 

Bobbie, Dean and Sam had been tested time and time again, but what no one else knew and what no one else wanted to confront was the reality that as a Winchester, you got knocked down all the time, but you always, always got back up to fight another day. A Winchester’s wings would always rise from the ashes, the unforgiving nightmare they toiled in, more fiery and determined than ever before.

“Let’s go,” Sam said. “We’ve got work to do.”


	2. Phantom Traveler

Part 1

“How do you do it? All this?”

People tend to ask us that a lot. Hell, I question how we do it on a nearly constant basis. The answer is complex to say the least and the answers tend to change on a dime. On the one hand…I just do it. It’s what I know and I do it well, so I do it. If I didn’t the guilt would rattle at my brain. Why should I be living the sweet life when I know what’s out there and I know how to handle it? It just seems wrong. It seems selfish. But only for me of course. My brothers should be able to do as they please - hunt or have a home without guilt. On the other hand, even through all the pain and misery my brothers and I have gone through, we’ve saved people and that’s a feeling you really can’t describe unless you’ve felt it.

Helping someone survive the things they can’t explain? The monsters? Allowing them to return to the normal life my brothers and I never had? That’s a great feeling. Some hunters would say it’s a drug. I would say it’s a drug.

I’m not one of those ‘if-I-can’t-have-it-no-one-will people.’ I don’t have it, but if I can give it to someone else…well that’s the next best thing.

-

After Jess’s death, an absolute storm began to rage within Sam. It was almost frightening what that kind of anger could do to the most vulnerable and kind-hearted among men. Sam had always been the most vulnerable of the three of them and if they didn’t rein him in soon he could easily become someone they didn’t recognize.

For nearly a week, they stayed near Stanford trying to find any trace of what it was that killed her, but they couldn’t find anything so instead of sitting around and wasting their time, Bobbie, Dean and Sam moved on, following the trail their father left from town to town. 

One thing was certain. Their father going missing and this creature or spirit or whatever the hell it was showing up again after 20 years was absolutely no coincidence. It couldn’t be. Something bigger than the Winchester family was happening – the ball had started to roll.

It didn’t matter if the trail had gone cold – not really – not in the whole scheme of things. What it came down to was the fact that there was still evil out in the world and it was the kind of evil that could actually be stopped. Sam wanted to focus solely on finding their father because in his mind once they found him they’d be one step closer to finding whatever killed Jess and their mother, but they’d had no leads so Dean and Bobbie insisted on working cases as they normally would. His desire for revenge could easily steer them away from the thousands of people that needed their help. 

“We kill every evil thing between here and there,” Dean spat forcefully. 

In their fight against a wendigo and the vengeful spirit of a young boy who was denied the right to grow up, Sam became increasingly more impulsive, preferring to shoot first and ask questions later. It was so unlike the Sam they’d known and loved all their lives. Sure, the two elder siblings would’ve preferred that Sam have a proverbial fire under his ass in regards to hunting but this was the other extreme and it could easily get them or someone else killed. There had to be a happy medium. Happy. Ha!

In their motel room, Bobbie pulled Sam back to rest against her shoulder. “We are going to find Dad. I promise. And then we’ll all find what killed Jess. I won’t let all this be in vain.” This had been 20 years in the making; they could wait another few weeks.

-

Flying was the absolute worst thing in the world. There was no way anything could be worse. As he stood over the sink, splashing cool water onto his face, he wondered if there was any way for him to never fly again. What was natural about having a tube the width of a sequoia tree floating through the air with hundreds of people on it and just a few large wings to hold it all up?

Nothing!

If this convention wasn’t going to be keeping him abreast of the up-and-coming changes in dentistry there is absolutely no way he would be subjecting himself to this right now. He’d prefer to drive, but he just didn’t have the time.

One last time, he threw the now ice-cold water onto his face, wiping it away to realize he wasn’t alone in the restroom anymore. “Nervous flyer?” The man asked.

You think?! “Just a bit,” he replied. Snark probably wasn’t the best answer with a total stranger just moments before he was supposed to board a mobile death trap. 

He was extremely jealous that the other man seemed to be a comfortable flyer. What he wouldn’t give. “You’ll be okay,” he said. “I mean what are the odds of dying in a plane crash? Like 20,000 to 1?”

“T-that doesn’t make it better,” he replied, following the other gentleman’s walk as he made his way out of the bathroom. Before he could say anything else, a cloud of something, black and almost smoke-like was staring him in the face. He tried to step out of the way but it followed him and when it touched him, he realized he was no longer himself. He couldn’t do anything to stop it. Something else was driving him through the crowded airport.

-  
What the hell is going on?

How can I not have control over my own body?

He felt like he was drunk. But times 1,000 and he wasn’t unaware of what was happening. 

As he walked onto the plane, he felt his grip on himself slipping. It was like an intense itch that was slowly taking over every feeling in his body. And then…

Sometimes people just didn’t want to face the fact that they had no control over anything anymore. “Enjoy your flight,” the blonde attendant said. 

He had big plans for these passengers. “Oh, I plan to.” The little moment when a human was thrown off, when they couldn’t quite shake that uneasy feeling, oh that was delicious. Smirking, he made his way to his seat. He was practically giddy with excitement. How was he supposed to wait? 

Once they were up in the air, he started to feel those exciting jitters; the kind he got anytime he indulged in a little mischief and mayhem. It was almost time! The next few minutes flew by but that was only because he made corny jokes with some of the other passengers. A favorite of his was “wow, time really must fly.” So much amazing foreshadowing and they had absolutely no idea. Just the way he liked it. “How long have we been in the air?” He asked the woman next to him.

“About 40 minutes,” she replied warily. His presence did tend to make people uncomfortable. 

Perfect. It was time for the headlining event.

Amidst the recycled air of the cabin, he stood up and excused himself to pass the woman sitting next to him. If he had a little more room he’d skip down the aisle, but alas he’d just have to contain himself. When he reached the emergency exit door, he hesitated for a moment. Not because of doubt. No, not at all. He just wanted to take in the moment. Turning around, he caught sight of one of the passengers and then reached for the handle. 

From behind him, he heard it – the stinging panic of incoming chaos. “Hey! What are you doing?”

The human flew out the window and as he vacated the meat suit and let it fly through the air to its inevitable death, satisfied with a job well done, he heard the sound of hysterical screams. Mixed with the wind whistling into the now open cabin, it was like a symphony – and he was the conductor.

-  
The slamming of the door woke her up. Why did everything have to be so loud? Bobbie had always been a light sleeper, but still. “What the hell?”

She popped up, bouncing against the crappy motel mattress. God her back hurt. Was she already getting too old for this? “Sam? What are you doing up?”

Dean groaned into the pillow, cursing them both for waking him up when they actually had a chance to sleep. “What time is it?” He moaned, wiping the sleep from his eyes with closed fists like a tired child. Sometimes it was hard to remember that these were her grown brothers now – to Bobbie, they would forever be the little boys she had to protect and love. It’s just now they could kill shit.

“5:45,” Sam said matter-of-factly, holding up a tray of coffees and what smelled like fresh chocolate donuts. 

“AM?” Bobbie fell back into the mattress and finally caught sight of the clock. It was in fact 5:45 in the morning. “You’re insane.”

Sam shrugged and passed them both coffees and donuts before biting into one himself. Woah. If Sam was shoving crap food in his face then something had to be wrong.

“Having trouble sleeping?” She asked, already knowing the answer. She wished there was some way to help him, but unfortunately, no matter how much she wanted to, she had to let Sam be at the forefront of this battle. If he needed the backup, she’d be there.

Dean sat up and placed his feet on the floor as he attempted to knock the sleep out of his eyes. “You still having nightmares about Jess?” He asked.

At first, Sam couldn’t meet either of their gazes, but he smoothed back his hair with his hands and gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Yea. It’s not just about her though. It’s everything.”

Bobbie raised an eyebrow in his direction that coaxed him into elaborating. “All of this. What we do. I’m not used to it anymore.”

More than anything she didn’t want any of them to ever get “used to it,” but unfortunately, she felt like she and Dean were already on their way to working on autopilot. “It’s petrifying.”

“I know,” Bobbie whispered. She was always afraid. How could she not be when she was staring death in the face on a daily basis? The difference was she wasn’t going to let that fear stop her from doing what she need to do and being who she needed to be. 

Silence hung between the three for a moment. “What you’re never afraid?” Dean had been suspiciously silent. For years, it had just been Bobbie and Dean; she knew he was afraid. But she also knew he’d never admit it.

As if on cue. “Afraid? No way.”

Lies, Dean. Lies. Sam could see it too.

Suddenly, her phone began to ring on the bedside table. It was a number she didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

“Hey, is this Bobbie?”

“This is she. Who is this?”

“This is Jerry Panowski,” he said, adding when he sensed her hesitation. “You, Dean and your dad helped me a couple years back with a poltergeist.” Oh yea, she remembered him. Unlike so many of their cases where they had to convince people of the scary supernatural shit, Jerry believed them the second they’d told him what was haunting his family.

A tenseness she didn’t realize she’d been carrying dissipated from her shoulders. “Jerry, hi,” she replied, turning on the phone’s speaker. “What can I help you with?”

His voice was heavy with sadness. “You hear about the United Britannia flight a couple days ago?” 

“Yea.” Dean and Sam both nodded as they tried to figure out why the hell Jerry would be calling about the plane downed by mechanical failure.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said softly. “But that plane didn’t have any mechanical failures. I think this might be your area of expertise.”  
\----

Part 2 

While Bobbie, Dean, Sam and Jerry made their way through the warehouse, the rest of the employees went about life as normal with absolutely no idea as to why their boss had called these three random kids. 

Sam never met Jerry before, but he could see he was “good people” the moment they met. 

“Your father, sister and brother helped me out a few years back with a poltergeist.” Jerry said, addressing Sam as he tried to dodge the looks from his subordinates. One even seemed to think he was referring to the movie. Oh, to be that naïve, Bobbie thought.

In passing, Jerry mentioned John not being able to be there. “But we get Sam so I say we’re even.”

“Not quite.” Sam and their father may not have been on the best of terms but Sam was barely a hunter anymore. John had been doing this for 20 years. Every hunter knew John Winchester and his kids. “I haven’t been on cases in a while. I’m just getting back into the swing of things.”

“If Dean and Bobbie think you’ll get the job done then that’s good enough for me,” he assured him. “Your dad constantly talked about how proud he was of you.”

“Really?”

Bobbie drew her lips into a straight line and swallowed back the unease building in her throat. The tone in Sam’s voice… he truly didn’t feel their father was proud of him. Their entire family sucked at communication. The next time they were all in the same room together she was going to crack all three of them upside the head. Sam should never have had to doubt their father’s pride in him.

Jerry asking where John was brought her back out of her thoughts. “He’s just wrapped up on another job,” Dean replied without missing a beat. He’s missing probably wasn’t what this desperate man needed to hear at the moment. 

Inside Jerry’s office, he lowered his voice and turned on the recording they had managed to recover from the plane’s wreckage. The first few seconds seemed fairly benign, at least in terms of anything supernatural, but then an ear-piercing roar resounded throughout their ears. “Well, that’s interesting,” Bobbie scoffed.

“Interesting is a word,” Sam said. “There’s EVP on that tape.”

“That’s what made me call you,” Jerry replied. After the poltergeist, Jerry had made sure to learn up on the basics of all this crap in case anything ever happened again. Good thing he had. 

This definitely had their kind of job written all over it, but it was also a little out of the realm of what they’d handled on their own so far. It didn’t matter though because uncertainties didn’t matter. They had to figure this out so it didn’t happen again. Over 100 passengers on board and only seven had survived. 

“Alright,” Dean said, already sounding exhausted when the case hadn’t even started yet. “We’re going to need the passenger manifests, a list of survivors, a sneak peak at the wreckage, the whole nine.”

Jerry grimaced. “I can get you the manifests and the list of survivors but the wreckage that we recovered is being re-assembled by homeland security, so…”

Sam rubbed at his temples. “Shit.”

They’d never had to impersonate Homeland Security officers before. This was going to be fun. Except in this case fun actually meant awful and risky on a level they’d never traveled to before. Bobbie shrugged. First time for everything.

-  
“Alright,” Bobbie said as they got in the car. “Theories. What are we dealing with?”

“Vengeful spirit?” Sam asked hopefully. They’d dealt with those before. That would be way too simple.

Dean pulled out of the parking lot near Jerry’s warehouse and sped off to a copy shop so they could get the necessary fake IDs made. “I have no fucking clue. It’s not like anything we’ve faced before.” 

Sam’s eyes widened in surprise. If Dean and Bobbie hadn’t gone up against it, maybe their father had. Bobbie was already on top of it, sifting through their father’s journal for anything that might indicate what they were up against. “Anything?” He asked hopefully. Both of his older siblings had inherited their father’s instincts. 

“I have nothing to go on but pure instinct, but my gut says demon,” she said. 

Dean pulled up the sidewalk next to the shop and cleared his throat. They’d never gone against a demon before. Not alone. “What makes you say that?”

“The sheer amount of people. If it was a vengeful spirit or a specter or something like that it would probably just go after the person it had the issue with. Demons want death. They don’t discriminate.”

It made sense but that only furthered the tension in the car. They had a lot of research to do. “What about a haunted object?” Dean said suddenly. It was possible, but Bobbie couldn’t help but think that he was just grasping at straws because he didn’t want it to be a demon. “There was that flight 401 where the plane crashed and pieces of the wreckage were recovered and used in the making of new planes, so the pilot and co-pilot haunted the planes that used the recovered parts.”

“I don’t know if that’s going to be any easier,” Sam interjected as Bobbie and Dean started talking about how that job had been dealt with. It felt like the car was closing in on them.

“Why?” Bobbie asked.

“Because that means we’re going to have to track down a haunted object that was on someone at the time, which means it could be gone, or we’d have to torch the wreckage of the Britannia flight so it doesn’t happen again and that would mean going undercover as Homeland Security and torching all the evidence.”

See…fun.

-

“First on our list of survivors is Max Jaffey, but I don’t know if he’s going to be willing to talk to us.” Bobbie and Sam looked at their brother quizzically. “After he got out of the hospital, he checked himself into a mental hospital.”

Bobbie nodded in understanding. “Okay, so he thinks that he’s insane because of what he undoubtedly saw. That’s why we’re talking to him first.”

“Right.”

Ten minutes later they pulled up to the asylum, which honestly looked like it was plucked straight out of a movie – wrought-iron fences, a large brick building, patients milling around the small yard outside, some dressed in clothes fit for the outdoors, others dressed in pajamas. It was eerie, but not for the reasons one would normally think. Bobbie always wondered how many of the people in these places were more like Max, “insane” because they saw something that “couldn’t possibly be real.” It made her question whether or not keeping the supernatural a secret from the majority actually did more harm than good.

Following her brothers inside, she stood back as Sam asked if they could speak to Mr. Jaffey. The receptionist and the nurse at the front desk seemed hesitant, but they just flashed the fake badges they’d just gotten and told them that they wanted to ask him a few questions about the flight. Thankfully, they relented. 

A few of the residents were watering flowers – marigolds and pansies if Bobbie was correct. Others were just walking around the grounds. But Max was sitting at a table and staring off into the distance. It’d only been a week since he’d survived the seemingly un-survivable. “Hello, Max Jaffey?” Dean asked as the three of them approached.

Max flinched at his name being called. He knew what was to come and was desperate to avoid it, but he allowed the three siblings to sit at the table with him. “Can we ask you a few questions about flight 2485?”

“Do I have to go over this again?” He asked exasperatedly, his head sinking into his hand. He couldn’t stay still in his seat and his body was twitching like he drank way too much caffeine.

Bobbie made a second plea and he too relented. Thank God. Considering they didn’t know for sure what they were up against, they were glad to not have to fight at every turn to get the answers they needed. 

“What made you check yourself into a place like this?” Sam asked.

As he fiddled with his thumbs and avoided their eyes, Max shrugged. “I did just survive a plane crash, you know.”

“Yea, but here?” Dean wondered. “Seems like the wrong place for someone who survived what you did, unless-?”

Max snapped in Dean’s direction. “Unless what? Unless I was seeing things? Well, I was. I had to be. Nothing else makes sense.” He started biting his nails so hard and frantically Bobbie was sure he was going to draw blood. 

Dean made eye contact with Sam and cleared his throat. “What did you see? Can you tell us what happened?”

“What happened was a mechanical failure,” he responded. “What I saw - what I think I saw,” he clarified, “was impossible.”

If they hadn’t heard that a million times before Bobbie would eat her hat. She didn’t own a hat. She’d eat her leather jacket then. It was her favorite jacket. “We are interested in what you think you saw,” she said. “It doesn’t matter to us what it sounds like.”

Max propped himself up in his chair and leaned toward them. “Okay, you want to know what I think I saw. I could’ve sworn I saw a man walk up to the emergency exit, turn around and look at me with black eyes and then pull the door open. But that can’t have actually happened! I researched it. It takes like two tons of pressure to open that exit mid-flight. It’s humanly impossible.”

Bobbie’s lip twitched involuntarily. Humanly was the key word there.

“Just one more question. Did anything besides the eyes seem off about the guy?” Sam asked.

“He was just calm. Determined. Other than that, he looked like any other passenger. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

Bobbie shook her head. “No, not at all. Just because something can’t be explained doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

“What are you doing to do?”

“We’re going to take care of it.”

-

They visited two of the other survivors and come up with nothing useful before they came upon George Phelps’ wife. 

“This doesn’t look like an evil monster’s home. This looks like apple pie suburbia,” Sam said. Looks could be so deceiving. 

Dean’s attention piqued at the mention of pie and he knocked on the door. That was the problem with the supernatural – one of the problems anyway – so many of them could pass themselves off as human. 

Mrs. Phelps welcomed them inside. On the walls and the shelves on the way into the living room stood random knick-knacks that served no actual purpose and picture after picture of the two of them together. According to how Max described him, this was the man who’d pulled open the hatch. “So he was a dentist?” Bobbie started.

“He was going to a convention in Denver,” she said sadly. “You know, George hated flying. He was petrified of it. For him to go that way…” She trailed off, finding it hard to fight back tears. “We were married for 13 years. He was a good man.”

All three Winchesters shifted uncomfortably in their seats as they tried to discreetly look around and see if anything out of the ordinary stood out, but there was nothing. George Phelps and his wife were the most benign people in the world it seemed. They weren’t going to get anything from this. “Mrs. Phelps,” Bobbie began again. “In the days and weeks before the flight, was there anything out of the ordinary about your husband? Did you notice anything strange, like changes in behavior or something like that?”

“He had acid reflux, if that’s the kind of thing you mean.”

No, in fact, that wasn’t what they were looking for. This job was getting more confusing by the second.   
\---

Part 3

Bobbie came out of the dressing room of the small store, closed her eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. “I feel so weird right now.”

Jeans, a t-shirt, crapp knock-off converse or vans and a leather jacket. That’s what she was used to. That was the Bobbie Deanna Winchester uniform. Standing here in a pencil skirt, white blouse (tucked into the skirt of course) and fitted blazer with the most plain, black shoes? Hell, absolute hell. One of the many reasons she never would’ve made it outside of the hunter’s life.

Sam snickered under his breath. “You look like a businesswoman who’s wearing her mother’s clothes because she can’t afford any of her own. Like you’re playing dress up.”

“I hate you.”

The three of them had come to this particular store because it was cheap. The hunter’s life was not lucrative. When her brothers emerged from their dressing rooms clad in black suits with long, skinny ties, she threw her head back and laughed. She always got the last laugh. “You look like the Blues Brothers.”

“Shut up. We look cool.”

“That’s highly debatable.”

Even with shoddy “uniforms” and even worse IDs, all it ever took was a bit of confidence to get where they needed to go. Inside the warehouse, pieces of the plane were scattered about like fallen crumbs. “This is all they were able to find?” Bobbie couldn’t believe it. Every inch of what they’d found was burnt to a crisp. If the plane looked this bad, she hesitated to think what the crash had done to the passengers. 

Behind her, Sam and Dean walked in the opposite direction, gliding back and forth between the pieces of the wrecked plane with the EMF meter that Dean had made out of an old Walkman. It looked like hell, but it worked. “What did you expect me to do?” She heard Dean ask their little brother.

“I don’t know…buy one? Anything except walking around with that glorified Walkman.”

“This is a Walkman! We’re hunters, man! What about no money do you not understand?” He shook it proudly in front of Sam’s face. “I made it myself.”

“We made it!” Bobbie screamed.

Bobbie shook her head and smiled. Still bickering like little children after all this time. Meeting up in the middle of the room, all three of them descended upon the emergency exit door. Like everything else it was covered in black ash. The handle though was tinged with something else they couldn’t immediately identify. Dean leaned in to scrape some off into a vial. “I think I know what it is,” he said.

With a little further examination, Sam and Bobbie did too. They’d have to have Jerry test it out to know for sure, but if it was what they were thinking, then the Winchester kids did have a demon on their hands – a demon whose sole purpose was destruction on a massive scale. 

A sense of dread hung in the air for a moment when the cracking of an opening door and a herd of incoming footsteps interrupted them. “Move,” Sam whispered harshly. They ran quickly out the door before anyone could catch them but then an alarm went off.

“Shit!” Bobbie picked up her pace and threw her blazer over the fence before jumping up and over. It was probably for the best that she wasn’t wearing her leather jacket because then it would have the tears in it rather than the damned blazer. Dean copied her, throwing his suit jacket over the fence and Sam didn’t even bother. If they got caught impersonating Homeland Security they were royally fucked.

Somehow they managed to get into the Impala and peel off and away without getting caught. They had a habit out of getting out by the skin of their teeth. One day it would backfire on them, but today was not that day. 

-

Just outside was what he feared most. Coincidentally it also ran in his blood. Chuck Lambert had always wanted to be a pilot, but then tragedy struck out of nowhere. He felt like it was his fault. On his watch more than 90 people died. How was he ever supposed to get behind the wheel of a plane again? “Baby steps,” he muttered to himself as his heart raced.

After much coaxing from a friend, he’d agreed to fly a small jumper plane. Actually driving something smaller might make him feel like he had some control again. It had so painfully slipped through his grasp before; he couldn’t let it happen again. He wouldn’t survive it. 

As he rubbed at the searing pain in his head, he stilled. Now he felt fine. Like he was a whole new man.

“Ready to go, Chuck?”

The pilot’s friend had been weary about him getting back into a plane so soon, but Chuck was the kind of man that needed to get back on the proverbial saddle. He wasn’t going to be convinced otherwise. “Yea, let’s go.”

When they walked outside into the cloudless day, he asked Chuck one last time how he was feeling.

“I’m great,” he said with an earnest smile. “I actually feel really good.”

He’d been so nervous just a few minutes earlier. What the hell had gotten into him?

Despite what he’d been through less than a week earlier, all seemed well as they picked up off the ground. “How long have we been up?” Chuck asked.

Honestly, he hadn’t even noticed. Looking down at the watch at his arm, he spoke. “About 40 minutes.”

“Wow, time really does fly,” Chuck said.

In an instant, Chuck tipped the plane toward the ground. 

-

On the way back to the motel, Jerry called to confirm their suspicions. The stuff on the handle was sulfur – indicative of a demon. Dammit. “Why the hell would a demon possess someone to kill an entire plane?” Dean asked. “Don’t demons normally go for the one on one?”

“They do,” Bobbie said as she cleared her throat. 

Sam leaned back into the seat of the Impala and raked his hands through his hair. “Do we even know what we’re doing?” He asked.

“What do you mean?”

They were used to vampires and werewolves and vengeful spirits. This was all together different and much more difficult. On top of that it was a demon that was causing damage on a larger scale. 

“I mean we thought it was a demon before. We don’t know how to handle them, not specifically anyway, and now we have confirmation that it is actually a demon, so what are we going to do?”

Dean straightened in his seat, demeanor changing in the face of Sam’s doubt. “We do know what to do. We just haven’t done it before. We’re going to go back to the room. Delve into all that lore you love so much and figure out how to track it down and the exact exorcism we need to use. Then we’ll do it. We have to stop this Sam. You know we do.”

“I know,” he replied taking a deep breath. “I just wish Dad was here.”

He’d know what to do.

-

An hour later, Sam’s fingers were still gliding over the pages of all the research they could gather on demons. “So get this,” he said suddenly. “Some cultures believe that certain demons cause particular disasters, both natural and unnatural. So there would be a demon or hurricanes, a demon for earthquakes, a demon for plane crashes…”

Dean blinked in surprise as he tipped the bottleneck of a beer toward his mouth. “So…what? A demon just found a way to ratchet up the body count?” 

“It makes sense,” Bobbie interjected. “That’s a demons drive. Death and destruction. It could be a demon that’s been one for so long that killing one by one just doesn’t do it for him anymore.”

“Jesus.”

“Yea. Alright Sam, can you scan Dad’s journal for what exorcism to use?”

“Sure, but we haven’t even found it yet.”

“But if we happen upon it, we need to be prepared.”

“Okay, yea, I’ll do that. What about you?”

“I’m going to get us some beer.”

Dean smirked as he drank the last of the beer he had left. “I knew you were my favorite sister.”

“I’m the best you’ll ever get.”

-

Sure the store was just down the road, but stealing the keys to the Impala and the running like a bat out of hell from her baby brother was much more fun. Him giving her the finger as she drove away made her feel like she had a normal family for a split second. Dysfunctional sure, but normal. 

However, once she was out of his sight the smile drained from her face. They were so in over their heads. It had been that way since they were children. Neither Dean nor Bobbie had been able to get a hold of John, but she pulled out her phone again on autopilot. Even as the oldest of the three of them, she still needed her father and she wasn’t afraid to admit it – to herself at least.

“Hey Dad,” she said softly, her voice shaky as she tried to keep her composure. “Dad, we’re in over our heads. We’ve got a demon on our hands. You’ve handled these before. We haven’t. If you are getting these messages, can you call me? We need you.” Bobbie’s lip quivered as the anger bubbled over. “I can practically hear your response. ‘You don’t need me, Bobbie. You are stronger than I’ve ever been.’ Well, you know what, that may be true, but I’ve had to be your emotional sounding board and their mother since I was five because of your fucking vendetta. I’ve had to be an adult for 21 years and I want my damn father to show up and do his job. You’re not just a hunter and a husband. You’re a father. Act like it.” With shaking hands, she ended the call and threw the phone to the bottom of the car. When she returned from her beer run, she heard it buzzing on the floor.

In a perfect world, it would’ve been John, saying he was sorry and that he’d be there as soon as he could. She wouldn’t have accepted the apology right away, but it would’ve been a step in the right direction. Unfortunately they didn’t live in a perfect world. Instead it was Jerry. “Hey Jerry. What’s up?”

“My pilot friend, Chuck. He’s dead.”

“I’m so sorry,” she replied. “What ha-“

“His plane went down in a field outside Nazareth.”

-

Indulging in a couple of beers with family was something that normal people did. Instead, Bobbie rushed back to the motel and informed her brothers of Jerry’s phone call. “Where’d it go down?” Dean asked.

“Right outside Nazareth.”

Sam couldn’t help but see the connection. It was yet another nail in the proverbial coffin that said ‘this is a demon, you should probably back off.’ “That can’t be good.”

It took the three of them about a half hour to get there. It should’ve taken about 45 minutes, but with Dean behind the wheel you could always count on getting to your destination 10 or 15 minutes ahead of schedule. 

An enormous plume of black smoke greeted them as they drove down the road toward the crash site. Jerry was already there of course, shake to his core that two planes had gone down in less than a week, one carrying a dear friend. “We have to hurry here. The authorities will be here again soon and I can’t explain the three of you away.”

Sam quickly climbed into the open cockpit being careful to leave little evidence of their search behind. “There’s sulfur.”

“What does that mean?” Jerry asked. A momentary hint of panic flashed behind his gray-green eyes. 

Dean pointed him toward his car. “Let’s go back to your office and talk there.”

The second they were back in Jerry’s office he demanded to know what was happening. “You were right,” Dean started. “It wasn’t mechanical failure. It was a demon.”

Jerry’s eyes went wide. “What? Are you serious? Like hell spawn demon?”

“Unfortunately,” Bobbie replied.

Sam went on to explain what demonic possession was actually like. “It’s likely Chuck was possessed before he got on the plane.”

“But how?”

“Demons seek out people who are in a state of weakness. They can take over stronger people, but if someone is sick or ridden with anxiety or even just has a cut it’s easier for them to take over,” Bobbie explained, turning towards Dean and Sam. “Did you notice how the plane went down after 40 minutes?”

Dean nodded. 

“2485 went down after 40 minutes too,” Jerry said slowly. “What does that mean?”

Taking a deep breath, Sam told Jerry what they’d only just put together themselves. “Forty is biblical numerology. Like 40 days in the desert. The number stands for death.”

“Remember when the EVP said no survivors,” Dean asked, “but we all knew that made no sense because there were survivors. That’s because the demon is going after everyone that survived 2485.”

\----

Part 4

They’d spoken to all but one survivor – flight attendant Amanda Walker. And she was returning to work tonight. Bravo, Bobbie thought to herself. You wouldn’t catch her on a plane again if she were her, especially after just a week. Her plane was going to go down tonight. They needed to move fast.

Dean pressed the gas pedal of the Impala into the floor, racing down the highway in an attempt to get in touch with Amanda Walker before she got on the plane. While Dean drove, Bobbie and Sam called her phone over and over again to no avail. Either it was off or they were getting busy signals. If they didn’t get a hold of her soon, that entire plane was going to go down in a ball of flames. 

With just 45 minutes until her plane was going to take off, Dean, Sam and Bobbie peeled into the parking lot of the airport, loud screeching of tires against tar stirring up the biting scent of burning rubber. They ran through the cloud of smoke that came with it and into the airport. 

In their panic, they hadn’t discussed how to get in touch with her once they got here. On instinct, Dean ran through the crowd of people and toward a phone. 

“Who can I connect you to?” 

“I need to get in touch with Amanda Walker at gate 13,” Dean said. Good idea. With so little time left, she was likely already there. “Hello, Ms. Walker. This is Dr. James Hetfield. Now there’s no need to panic, but a Karen Walker was just admitted to the hospital after a car crash.”

Bobbie and Sam listened in closely as Amanda panicked momentarily. “Wait, that can’t be. I was just on the phone with her a few minutes ago. She was at home and completely fine.” None of them had thought of that. “Is…is this one of Vince’s friends?”

“You caught me,” Dean said sheepishly as he stared at the ground at his shuffling feet. That’s how he’d looked whenever he got caught ever since they were kids. 

“Why are you even calling?” She demanded. “Why would you do something like that?”

Dean scrambled for words while the two of them looked on worriedly. This was spiraling more and more out of control by the second. “He…he misses you,” Dean bluffed. How they’d managed to happen upon all the right circumstances for this conversation was astounding. “He’s really sorry. Come on, don’t you think you could give him another chance?”

“I have to go,” she said. 

“Please?” Dean asked. “He can be by and see you in just a few minutes.”

The relenting sigh in her voice made the three Winchesters believe they might’ve done it. “Look, tell him to call me as soon as I land.”

Before any of them could say anything she hung up the phone. “Dammit,” Sam said. “We have to get on that plane.”

That was what Bobbie had been thinking, though the thought made her sick to her stomach.

“What?” Dean exclaimed, his voice an octave higher than normal.

“We have to stop that plane. People are gonna die, Dean.” None of them had any idea what they were doing or if there was a better way to go about this, but they were the only chance those passengers had. If they didn’t go, all of them would die. 

Dean bit his lip and glanced away from them for a moment. 

“What is it?” Sam asked.

“I…I hate flying.”

“You’re joking right?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Alright, then Bobbie and I will go alone.”

Less than ideal, but they had to move and they had to move fast. “No way,” Dean said.

“We’ll either do it ourselves or we all go. There really is no other option.” 

Dean looked like he wanted to throw a temper tantrum. It was funny how quickly he could go from self-assured to petulant. “Come on!”

While Sam and Bobbie went to grab the tickets, Dean ran out to the car to grab whatever he could stuff in a small bag for the three of them to carry on as luggage. It probably wasn’t the best idea for him to grab the tickets, he had just a little bit of excess nervous energy he needed to run out of his system. If he had his choice, he’d go to a farm and shoot metal cans or go to a bar and pick up a woman and / or a stiff drink. Anything to shake this feeling. 

-

The tension hung thickly in the air as the three of them made their way onto the plane. Sam seemed okay. Bobbie was a little queasy. But Dean literally looked like he wanted to jump out of his skin. Just as the plane took off, Bobbie could swear she heard Metallica and then she looked at her brother. “Are you humming Metallica?”

“It calms me down,” he said, staring straight ahead while he continued. Bobbie was almost positive it was Enter Sandman.

Sam leaned over Bobbie in the middle seat and snapped his fingers in front of Dean’s face. “Hey, we need you to stay focused.”

“Easier said than done,” he snapped.

“Seriously, man! Emotional distress can let a demon in too. If we’re worried about you getting possessed then we can’t help these people, so focus!”

Swallowing hard, Dean nodded and started wringing his hands together. The last thing he wanted to do was be a burden to two of the three people he had left in the world. “Okay, so what are we going to do? We have two exorcisms in Dad’s book. Which one do we use?”

“Sam and I will figure that out,” Bobbie said, pointing toward the back of the plane “you should go talk to Amanda Walker and see if it’s her. How are you going to figure it out?”

Dean leaned down to the “luggage” he’d packed. “Holy water.”

Bobbie grabbed it from his hand and shoved it back in the bag. Sam chimed in. “You can go more subtle. If she’s the demon, she’ll flinch in the name of God, right?”

“Okay, yea…yea,” he breathed, getting up from his chair. 

Bobbie grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “In Latin it’s Christo.”

“I know that!”

“Well hurry up and go,” she said glancing at her watch. “We now have 37 minutes to identify and exorcise a demon.”

“Not helping,” he replied through gritted teeth, muttering as he left. “I hate this. I freakin hate this.”

-  
As Dean approached, he tried to rid himself of the nerves, but it was insanely difficult when there was turbulence nearly every five feet. Behind the curtain, Amanda Walker stood readying drinks for the unsuspecting passengers. “Can I help you?”

“Sorry, I’m just an uneasy flyer and walking around helps get rid of the nervous energy,” he replied. It was true, but if she only knew about why he was actually nervous. 

The flight attendant smiled and continued placing plastic cups on the tray she had set up by her side. “I’m actually a nervous flyer too.”

“Really? Aren’t you kind of in the wrong line of work then?”

Amanda just shrugged it off, but the reality of her situation was something that Dean really couldn’t get a hold of. “Ever thought of finding other employment?”

“No actually,” she said genuinely. “Everyone is afraid of something. I just don’t want the things I’m scared of to hold me back from doing what I want in life.”

Wow. That was awesome and was totally out of his realm of understanding. “Christo,” he said under his breath.

“What?” 

Maybe he didn’t say it loud enough. “Umm, Christo?” He said it directly to her and nothing. Dammit. She wasn’t who they were looking for. After embarrassingly excusing himself, he returned to his aisle seat beside Bobbie. “She might be the most well-adjusted human beings I’ve ever met. And she’s not the possessed one.”

“You said Christo?” Sam asked.

“Twice.” He pulled his seat belt back on and just as it clicked the plane jostled again. “Come on that can’t be normal!”

Bobbie snorted and turned to kiss the side of his head. “It’s just turbulence. Take a breath.”

“We found a two-part exorcism,” Sam interjected, attempting to take Dean’s mind off the shaking of the plane. “The first part manifests the demon and makes it more powerful-“

“And we want to do that why?” Dean’s voice cracked as he spoke. 

“Because the second part sends the demon back to hell, forever,” Bobbie replied. “We could use a more simple one but that’s only going to make it leave the host and seek out another one.”

Dean knew she was right, but one, he didn’t want to admit it and two, it sucked. So many things could go wrong. “Okay, okay. We’ve only got like 25 minutes to find this thing and send it back to hell.” He grabbed his homemade EMF meter out of his coat pocket and got up again, roaming the aisle and scanning the machine back and forth. Since it had been an old Walkman, it looked like he was just listening to music, but every now and then he’d linger near someone and bring their attention to him. 

Toward the front of the plane, the flight attendants gathered, chatting friendly about where they’d traveled to lately and where they were going to go next. Just as Dean was about to look up, the EMF meter started blinking red. Following its direction, he saw the co-pilot leaving from the bathroom, his eyes glossy and black.

They only had 15 minutes to spare.

With sweaty palms, Dean rushed back to his seat. “It’s the co-pilot.”

Bobbie stood up and Sam cursed behind her. “We have to go tell Amanda,” he said. “We’re running out of options.”

The three of them nervously headed toward the back of the plane where Amanda was at the tail end of preparing her drinks. “Oh, hi again,” she said to Dean. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Bobbie swallowed hard and started to explain. “This is going to sound nuts, but I need you to hear us out. We know you were on flight 2485 and we know that the plane didn’t go down because of a mechanical failure.”

Amanda’s mouth went dry, her eyes darting in any direction but toward the people in front of her. “How do you-? Why?”

“Take a deep breath,” Sam said, his hand stretching out toward her in reassurance. “We’re not going to hurt you, but we need your help. Without it, this plane is going to go down too.”

She started stammering, which made sense considering how insane this was, but they really couldn’t afford her hesitation. “I…I don’t understand-“

“Chuck is dead,” Dean interjected bluntly. He was normally more for lying to get what they needed, but they didn’t have the time.

“He’s dead?”

They all nodded and Sam asked her if there was anything or anyone on flight 2485 that made her uneasy or caught her off guard. “There was someone,” she said finally, too taken aback by their knowledge of everything to question them anymore. “He had these eyes…they were-“

All three of them spoke simultaneously. “Black.”

Amanda nodded almost imperceptibly. “What can I do?”

“Get the co-pilot.”

“What do you need him for?”

“We just need to talk to him,” Sam said instantly. It was scary how easily lies rolled off their tongues. 

They did need to talk to him…and banish a demon from his body and back into the fiery pits of hell, but they did need to talk to him so technically it wasn’t a lie. “You realize I can lose my job over this?”

Dean was so over this flight and this case that he didn’t care whether she lost her job or not. “If you don’t help us, you’re going to lose a lot more than that.”  
\----

Part 5

Through the curtains at the back of the plane, Dean watched Amanda get the co-pilot to come out of the cockpit and follow her. “We’re up,” he said softly. 

Seconds after he stepped through the curtains, Dean punched him in the side of the head and knocked him to the floor while Bobbie pulled Amanda in with them and closed the curtains.

Sam pulled out the holy water and started dousing him in it. The sizzle and scent of burning skin almost made Amanda pass out cold. “Oh my god. What’s happening? What is-? Why? I thought you just needed to talk to him?”

Technically. Kind of. Maybe not.

“Calm down,” Bobbie said. “If you freak out then everyone else goes on high alert and we can’t do what we need to do.”

“What do you have to do?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” Bobbie said sharply. “Please, trust us and just wait outside the curtains and make sure no one else comes in.”

Amanda turned green, on the verge of throwing up everything she’d eaten in the past week at the sight of what was going on before her. She had no idea who any of them were, but she recognized the man on the phone as the one she’d spoken to and it was clear they knew something she didn’t. 

The second she left, Bobbie knelt down beside her brothers and the thrashing co-pilot, using every ounce of strength she had to hold him down with Dean while Sam covered his mouth with duct tape. Even with two of them holding him, the demon was still ridiculously strong. “Sam, go!”

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. - ”

With each word, the demon bucked harder and harder. Every muscle in Bobbie’s body ached as she tried to keep him pined to the ground, but he managed to get his hand free from under Sam’s knee and punched Dean out of the way before kicking her back into the wall of the plane.

Peeling the tape to the side, the demon grabbed the collar of Sam’s jacket and spoke in the most gravely, icy tone any of them had ever heard. “I know what happened to you’re girlfriend,” he growled. “She must’ve died screaming.”

Sam panicked, staring the man down in astonishment before Dean got back up and knocked him out again. “Sam!”

“Ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te... cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque æternæ perditionìs venenum propinare... Vade, satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciæ, hostis humanæ salutis... Humiliare sub potenti manu Dei. –“

Bobbie came to just as the co-pilot thrashed violently in Dean and Sam’s grasp. His neck arched back and his throat contracted like he was going to get sick. Instead, a thick cloud of black smoke slid out of his throat like a snake and into one of the vents in the body of the plane. 

So that was the first part. 

Bobbie tried to stand up but found herself wobbling as the plane was wracked by violent dips and waves. As the plane dipped toward the ground, the passengers started to scream and cry, some frantically moving about to help their children or elderly parents with oxygen masks. “How the hell do we get it now?” Dean screamed over the chaos, body glued to the wall in terror.

Sam went to grab the journal with the necessary incantation but it slipped away. He tripped down the aisle trying to get it and finally managed to touch the edge of the leather with the tip of his fingers. Over the earsplitting cries of the frightened passengers, Sam yelled out the last of the incantation. 

“Contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine... quem inferi tremunt... Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos.”

When the last of the incantation slipped off his tongue, the plane was brutally hit one final time; there was a flash of light and then it all leveled out. Bobbie felt her heart in her throat as she pushed up off the ground where she’d been frozen in fear. Sam was covered in a sheen of sweat and he looked dazed, but otherwise he seemed okay. Her head snapped toward the back of the plane where she’d last seen Dean. “Hey, hey,” she repeated, grabbing her little brother by the chin. “Are you okay?”

“That depends,” he said. “Are we dead?” 

“No, we’re alive.”

“Okay. Good…did I crap myself?”

“Again, no. You’re as fresh as a daisy. Although you do reek of fear.”

“What and you don’t?” Finally, he cracked a smile. They’d gone against werewolves and vampires and spirits and now a demon, but seeing him plastered to the side of the plane was probably the most frightened she’d ever seen him. With one notable exception.

Sam found them both at the back of the plane and pulled them in. His long arms wrapped tightly around them, his head leaning against Bobbie’s as he at long last released some of the tension sitting in his shoulders. “We did it,” he breathed. “It’s over.”

This was. But Bobbie was pretty sure it was just the beginning.  
-

Back on the ground, the plane’s passengers milled around talking to authorities about what happened. Only the Winchesters and Amanda Walker truly knew what happened. The co-pilot that had been possessed didn’t remember a thing. “I don’t even remember getting on the plane.”

Bobbie, Dean and Sam were shaken, not only from the near crash but the coming up against a demon – the first, but not the last. “We did good, boys,” Bobbie said with a smile. “All of these people are alive because of us.”

“I almost crapped myself,” Dean said again.

Sam laughed under his breath. “But you didn’t.” And Bobbie was right. He didn’t want back into this life, but now that he was here, he couldn’t deny that this is what it was all about. He made eye contact with Amanda who was standing across the room with a member of the TSA. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

Nodding, the three turned to leave. Sam lingered behind, his mind unable to focus now that everyone was safe. “You okay Sammy?” Bobbie asked.

“I just…it knew about Jessica.” He swallowed back against the dryness in his mouth and closed his eyes. “I don’t know how to handle that. What to do with that information. I’m-“

Bobbie placed her hand on his shoulder as Dean slowed up to ensure his brother was okay. “Demons lie,” he said. Sam glanced between the two of them.

“I was going to say what he said. He said what would affect you.”

“Well it worked,” he mumbled.

Bobbie squeezed his shoulder and began walking again. “We still have the beer from before. Let’s go back to the motel, celebrate and forget all this for a couple hours.”

Dean raised his eyebrows and turned back toward her. “I think we’re gonna need more beer for that.”

“You’re probably right.”

-

After stopping at the convenience store down the street from the motel for even more beer, Heineken for Sam and Blue Moon for Bobbie, in addition to the Bud for Dean, the three of them went back and cracked open the cold ones to toast to a job well done. “Can I ask you something?” Sam wondered as he looked at his sister. When she nodded, he continued. “When you came back before to tell us about Chuck’s plane, it looked like you’d been crying…are you okay?”

“I thought we were supposed to be drinking and forgetting,” she replied dryly. The last thing she wanted to do was bring this up, but then again, she was the one always bitching to the two of them that this family didn’t communicate, so she would lead by example. “Fine, I’m okay now. But I wasn’t…I called Dad.”

She wanted them to be a family. Bringing her disappointment in him up to her brothers would only push them apart further, but she couldn’t keep it in. “I was…am, I am so angry with him.”

“He may not be able to call,” Dean said. “Something could be wrong.” He was ever their father’s defender, even though deep down, Bobbie wondered if Dean wasn’t even angrier with him than either she or Sam. 

“I know. But if there’s nothing wrong, than he’s ignoring us. Like part of him training us to do this on our own or something. Don’t deny he could absolutely do something like that.”

Dean and Sam shrugged and took sips of their beer. 

“I basically said I was tired of his bullshit and hung up the phone.” She wasn’t about to tell them that she’d bitched about being John’s sounding board and their mother. She loved her brothers more than anything in the world. She’d die for them. She’d kill for them. But she didn’t want to guilt them and the point was she shouldn’t have had to become this way at such a young age. “I threw the phone to the bottom of the floor in the car and went to grab beer. When I came back, it was ringing and at first I thought it might’ve been Dad, but that was when Jerry called.”

“Gotcha,” Sam said, handing Bobbie another beer as soon as she finished her first. “I think we’re all mad at him…and yet I miss him.”

“I do too.” 

Dean finally chimed in again after opening his second drink. “Family is weird.”

“I can drink to that,” Sam said, lifting his bottle in another toast. “Now how about forgetting?”

Bobbie picked up the remote control and searched through the channel until she found what she wanted. “Drinks and zoning out in front of Scooby Doo.”

“Perfect,” Dean said with a sleepy smile.

-

Thankfully, Jerry was okay with waiting to thank them until the morning. Everyone was just too damn tired to do anything but drink and sleep, and in their case watch Scooby Doo for two hours. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find the right words to thank you,” Jerry said, extending his hand toward each of them. “Other people might not know what you did, but I do and I’ll never forget.”

As he walked them to the Impala, Bobbie reveled in the peacefulness of the morning sun. The sky was awash in oranges and yellows and pinks that reminded her of when she was really young, before any of this happened and her innocence had been lost in the gray, swirling wings. It reminded her of a time when her mother was alive and she wasn’t angry with her father. 

Dean opened the door for her, but just as she was about to get in, a nagging thought raged toward the front of her mind like a freight train. “Jerry, how did you know to call me? I’ve only had this phone for a couple months.”

“John told me.”

“You spoke to him?” Sam asked.

“Well, no, but when I called his voicemail it said to call Bobbie or Dean in case of an emergency.”

With all the answers they were going to get, Sam, Bobbie and Dean slipped into the Impala and told Jerry never to hesitate if he needed them again. 

Before getting on the main highway, the siblings pulled to the side of the road and attempted to call John one more time, this time on the phone he used strictly for other hunters. “If this is an emergency call Bobbie or Dean.”

“Damn,” Dean muttered. “Where the hell is he?”

Sam mumbled, kicking the dirt from the ground and watching it swirl into the air in front of him. “I don’t know. But I’m with Bobbie. He better have a damn good reason for not calling us back.”

“Do we go after him?” Dean asked.

How? They had no idea where he was. When John Winchester wanted to be left alone, he would be – not even they could find him. “No, we have no way to. At least right now,” Bobbie replied. “For now, we just work and keep our eyes open. We’ll find him. And if he’s not dead you two will get a front row seat to me beating the shit out of him.”

Dean grimaced and watched as she headed back to the backseat of the car. “Sam, as long as you don’t mind, I’m gonna nap back here.” They’d barely woken up a few hours ago, but anger wore her out more than hunting sometimes.

“That’s fine. I’ll take the front.”

As the Impala pulled onto the road, Bobbie drifted off. For at least one more day they were safe. In this life that was all that mattered. The day to day. The pinks and yellows and oranges managing to cling to hope, not fading to gray among the monsters that surrounded them.


	3. Home

Part 1

The hole-in-the-wall bar they were walking toward practically radiated the obnoxious mixture of cigarette smoke, fried foods and sexual desperation. It was about all the Winchesters could hope for save for the stale motel room smell that had virtually become a second perfume, but still, it was definitely not the most pleasant smell. Hopefully some food and a good game of pool would distract Bobbie from it. 

“Ah, smells good,” Dean said, inhaling as his eyes darted immediately to the pool table.

Of course he liked the smell in here. Bobbie could go for a plate of French fries, but as for the rest of it she was pretty sure she could do without. 

There were bars. There were hunter’s bars. There were places in between. This one was without a doubt a hunter’s gathering place. The only reason they knew? All eyes turned toward them. For better or for worse, they were famous despite wanting everyone to leave them alone.

Sam shivered at the feel of all eyes on him. “I hate this.”

“Me too, Sammy,” she replied, making her way over to the pretty blonde bartender. “Let’s just get some food and play a game. Ignore them.”

After placing an order for a giant plate of greasy, cheesy and bacon-y fries, some artery-clogging onion rings and a starter of three beers, they all headed over to the picturesque pool table and decided on a friendly, sibling tournament of eight ball. “Who against who first?” Dean asked.

Sam and Dean wanted to go first, which was the better for Bobbie because the gnawing in her stomach said fries were needed immediately. She actually hadn’t eaten since yesterday, late afternoon, so it was a miracle she hadn’t eaten one of her brothers alive or driven them insane in the ensuing hours. “What do I get if I win?” Dean asked.

Rolling his eyes, Sam pocketed the seven ball and promised Dean a bottle of cheap whiskey if he did win. Their sister sat back and smiled at them bickering while she inhaled some onion rings and fries like the hungriest anteater that ever walked the planet. “You leave any for us?” Sam asked, arms raised in disbelief, defeated after losing. She could see the determination in his eyes. He was going to practice pool so he could show Dean up one of these days. Dean was such a cocky bastard when it came to pool.

“Some. I was really hungry…sorry.”

“You are not.”

“This is true.”

Before Bobbie could walk toward the pool table, another bar patron grabbed her ass. In the blink of an eye, she spun around, smacked him and followed quickly with a kick to the balls. “Do not touch me again or I’ll cut it off.” More than the fair share of men had tried to make a move on Bobbie before. It didn’t matter if her brothers were there or not. But no matter what she always left them wishing they’d never set eyes on her.

Snickering, Dean threw her a pool cue. “Dad always told me to take care of you, keep on eye on you. I told him you didn’t need it.” He liked being right. 

“Really?” Sam asked. “Dad said that?” If there was one person that didn’t need protecting in his family, Bobbie was it. Her and Dean were the strongest people he’d ever known, even more so than their father because of all the things they’d had to deal with in his absence. 

It didn’t come as a surprise to her. Boys tended to run in both of her parents’ families; Bobbie was an anomaly. John was not a ‘girls father,’ he was meant for boys. “I’ll make sure to tell him that I need no help when it comes to defending myself from men. That shit’s easy. Occasionally I’ll need help with a werewolf though, only if there’s more than one, so in that case you boys can jump in front of them for me,” she said. Despite her statement, she would willingly throw herself into a den of werewolves if it would save the boys she loved.

“Somehow I don’t think you’ll need help there either,” Sam replied.

He was probably right, but Dean interrupted her train of thought. “So what do I get if I win?”

“You get to hit on the bartender by yourself instead of having to compete with me.”

“No!”

“Why not, baby brother?” She laughed. 

“Because I can get the bartender’s number with or without you there.”

“Okay, then I’m going to go ask her now. Be right back,” she said, feigning walking away. Having a bisexual sister must’ve been a big pain in the ass for him, but honestly she felt like she kept him on his toes – made him raise his game instead of getting complacent. Either brother could rely on their looks to bed a lady for the night, but she was never one to let that slide.

“Alright screw you, you’re on.”

“And if I win, I get the bottle of booze that Sammy’s buying you.”

“Fine,” he grumbled.

-

It felt nice to finally feel settled. She still had to unpack all of her things and all of the kids’ things, but Jenny had been feeling suffocated in the old place. No matter when she walked in or whom she was with, she couldn’t breathe there anymore. It had been time for a change. As she stood at the counter, chopping celery and carrots for some soup they’d hopefully have for dinner the following night, she stared up into the clear night sky. The stars were out tonight and she felt at peace for the first time in a while. “Mommy, are you going to come up and tuck me in?” 

Jenny pulled her gaze away from the stars and looked down toward where she was cutting her vegetables. “Be right up!” She called. As she turned to head up the stairs the lights flickered again. She was definitely glad to be out of her old home but this one definitely had its issues. She really needed to fix these lights. 

When she rounded the corner into Sari’s room, she saw her normally brave little girl cowering in fear, pastel colored blankets held closely to her chin with her knees almost digging into her chest. “Sari, what’s wrong?”

All she did was stare at the closet. Jenny couldn’t figure it out. Sari was usually so fearless, and now all of a sudden this closet was freaking her out. It didn’t make any sense. To placate her, Jenny opened the closet and stood inside in an attempt to show her daughter that there was nothing to fear here. Her unease with the whole thing was probably a result of moving, things changing at such a crucial point in her life. But Sari was a good kid and it would all pass soon enough. Until then, Jenny would assure her there were no monsters in her closet. 

With a kiss on her head, Jenny pulled the blankets up and around Sari. “I don’t like this house,” the little girl whispered.

Jenny sighed and repeated that there was nothing to be afraid of, but still, just for good measure, she put a chair in front of the closet door. “See? Now nothing can get out of there.”

Sari smiled timidly, ashamed that she was so afraid of something she couldn’t even see. She thanked her mother before lying down completely and pulling up the covers to keep away the cold.

They were finally down for the night. Sari was only hesitant to fall asleep because of the supposed monsters in her closet, but Ritchie was a whole other story. That boy was just full of boundless energy – something Jenny hoped would mellow out over the years. She was getting too tired for this. 

Although she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, she went back downstairs instead, making sure to be careful of the creaky steps, lest they make noise and undo all her hard work to start unpacking some more boxes instead. It was nearly impossible to get it done during the day because no matter when she decided to start in on the unboxing, her kids would undoubtedly need something and interrupt her. 

Speaking of interrupting, she could swear there was a scratching coming from the basement. All she wanted to due was unpack one of these boxes without being distracted. The scratching was soft and a bit random, but it was definitely there. “What is wrong with this place?” She asked aloud.

Curiosity got the better of her. Probably wasn’t the best. That whole ‘curiosity killed the cat’ phrase had to mean something, but it was probably nothing. Maybe a boiler failure that would of course eat into the savings she had put aside for a family vacation, but nothing more.

With a flashlight in hand, Jenny headed down the steps, ensuring with each step that the wood wouldn’t crumble beneath her feet. That’s the only reason this house had been affordable for her. It needed a lot of work. The switch on the wall didn’t work – of course – so she headed toward the bottom of the steps and pulled on the string near the light bulb. “Lovely.” That didn’t work either.

Jenny had never been a fan of the dark. Not since she was a little girl, but this was her fresh start, which meant changes were in store – both for her family and for her as a woman and mother. The flashlight scanned around the room, falling on small spots of water damage, a couple of cobwebs and a few boxes with water stains of their own. 

When she bent down to see what was inside, she thanked God the damage hadn’t gotten to the contents of the box. It looked like old family pictures and VHS tapes. Maybe she would be able to get in touch with whomever these belonged to. It would be a shame if they lost their family’s memories. 

Pulling out one of the pictures, she saw a clean-shaven man with a chiseled face, a young blonde woman, and three beautiful kids – one girl with light brown hair like Sari and two boys with matching hair and big, cheesy smiles. She turned over the photograph and saw faded writing on the back, but she could make it out:

John, Mary, Bobbie, Dean and Sam Winchester.

-

Upstairs, Sari awoke when she heard a scratch on the wooden floors of her bedroom. Her mother had promised to get a carpet eventually because she didn’t like the cold feeling of the wood under her feet, but she hadn’t been able to get it yet.

Sari pulled the covers closer to her eyes, fearing what might be there when she glanced toward the closet, but when the shadow of the chair skidded against the wall she snapped to attention.

With the chair across the room and the doors free to open, the little girl sat frozen in fear and watched as the doors opened by themselves. There was nothing there. It was just change, right? She didn’t like it and that’s why she was so nervous in this new place. That had to be the reason.

Seconds later she realized that she was right to have concerns about this house. A nearly invisible figure – almost human – stood before her, flames licking at its heels before sprouting upward. Before the flames could engulf the entire being, Sari was screaming at the top of her lungs.  
-

Whiskey was great, even the crappy stuff was fairly smooth and had a delicious kick that could knock someone out for the night. Dean’s whiskey had been particularly tasty, because why not, she’d screwed her brother out of it, but Bobbie did end up with a bit of a headache the next morning. For the most part she was a beer drinker; she definitely wasn’t used to whiskey.

“Serves you right for stealing my whiskey,” Dean said when he noticed her rubbing at her head.

Like any loving big sister would, she flipped him the finger and swallowed two headache pills dry. “Totally worth it,” she snickered. “And I didn’t steal. I won fair and square because I am the pool queen.” Turning her head toward the rickety table, she saw Sam already wide awake and staring intently at their clunky laptop. “What’s wrong?” 

“I think we have a case.”

“Where?” Dean asked. He never wondered where it was. It didn’t matter. Just as long as he had something to distract himself from the barrage of old memories.

“Home.”  
\----

Part 2

Bobbie’s stomach lurched into her throat when Sam mentioned home. 

Time and time again, she and Dean had talked about home and how they never wanted to go back. They said they’d never return.

Head into a werewolf den? No problem. Bust into a vampire nest? Bring it on. A bar full of demons? Sure, why not? But home…where she could feel the heat from the fire, where she could smell the burning wood, where she could still here her father screaming. No thanks. “Why?” She asked, her mouth now dry as a bone. “What makes you think there’s a case?” Collapsing back into the pillows, she had to force herself to listen to Sam and not go back to sleep to forget any mention of home. 

“I had a dream,” he said, his voice far off in the distance. Dean and Bobbie looked his way to see Sam frantically scrawling away on a notepad and checking between it and some of the pictures in their father’s journal. “I kept seeing this.” With a quick flick of his wrist, Sam lifted the notepad and showed it to them without ever looking up.

Bobbie couldn’t place it, probably because of the headache, but Dean stared quizzically. “It looks like a tree? What does a tree have to do with anything Sam? What does it have to do with us going home?” The waver in his voice at the mention of home proved that Dean had very real fears – he just didn’t show them. 

Finally, Sam’s eyes lit up and a sense of relief flooded him. He must’ve thought he was losing his mind. “I knew I recognized it. It’s from outside our house.”

There was no way Sam would remember that. He was only six months old before it all burned down and they moved away. Sure enough though, his drawing and the picture of them outside their home showed the same tree. “Okay, so that’s the tree from the old house. Why does that mean there’s a case there?” Bobbie asked.

“I have a gut feeling. Please you have to trust me.”

“We’ve gone on less,” Bobbie shrugged. They had, but she couldn’t help feeling like Sam was holding something back.

Dean wasn’t having it though. He always insisted on answers. Hence why Sam tended not to go to him with emotional issues and rather turn to her. She’d just let him talk it out. “No, Sam there’s something you’re not saying. I need more than a gut feeling. Now what’s going on?” Dean did have a tendency to lose control, but not when it came to cases. He jumped on any chance to defeat evil. 

Suddenly, the youthful look drained from Sam’s face and aged him by 10 or 20 years. “It’s…I’ve been having these dreams.”

“Like nightmares about Jessica?” Dean prodded.

“No. They’re nightmares, but…some of them come true.”

Bobbie stared in shock. “How so?” She desperately wanted it to be nothing. 

“Like Jessica. I saw her on the ceiling engulfed in flame for a few days prior to it actually happening.” Bobbie and Dean’s mouths dropped open in horrified awe. Before either of them could say anything he continued. “I assumed it was just bits and pieces of what you’ve told me about Mom added with the stress of classes and everything so I brushed it off, but then it actually happened. Last night I had another dream.”

“About Jessica?” Dean asked.

It seemed that the headache medication was doing absolutely nothing because it felt like Bobbie’s head was about to split open. “This didn’t seem like something you should’ve told us? Me?”

“Like I said, I didn’t realize anything was wrong until Jessica.”

Her throat felt raw – like it had been scraped by sandpaper. “But then you should’ve said something! Sam, you tell me everything! Why wouldn’t you tell me? Or Dean? Someone?” This was an absolute shitshow.

“You have enough to deal with…”

He felt guilty about putting something like that on them. But now they felt guilty because he’d been dealing with this all on his own. It was all a giant, vicious cycle. After a few heavy moments hung between them, Dean asked the necessary question. “What was this other dream?”

At least they believed him. Thankfully. He had no idea what he would’ve done if they didn’t. “I saw a blonde woman, probably about Mom’s age, standing at one of the windows on the top floor screaming for help and banging on the glass. That’s all I saw before I woke up, but between that and the dream about Jessica actually coming true, I feel like this woman is in serious danger. Please. This has to mean something, right?”

Dean placed his head in his hands as he glanced toward Bobbie. “We have to do this, don’t we?”

She wanted to throw up. If there was a God, the increasing need to hurl would be because of the whiskey and fried foods she’d had the night before and not the impending sense of doom that hung over her family’s head. “Yea, we do.”

-

The drive back to Lawrence, Kansas was just as excruciating as Bobbie had imagined it would be. Dean was tenser, even worse then he’d been when he and Bobbie realized that something was wrong with their father. He snapped at them at the smallest of questions and Bobbie needed to ask to pull over to the side of road on more than a few occasions so she could take a breather and or throw up. Throwing up in the precious Impala would’ve been the last straw. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Sam asked when she got back in the backseat with him. They’d both thought it better to leave Dean to brood in the front seat alone.

But no. “No. I’m not okay Sam. I never wanted to go back to that house. Dean never wanted to go back to that house. Dean only remembers bits and pieces of that night but it’s forever burned in my memory. You know what happened there. I felt it.”

Sam pulled his sister into his shoulder, playing with her hair as she rested against him. He’d never really thought of it that way. Probably because neither of his siblings had talked much about that night. Bobbie was open about everything else, but that she walled up behind the strongest of concrete. Everything he’d ever known about that night came from her, Dean and their father, but she had to live with it.

When she woke up a few hours later, Sam whispered apologies. “What for?” She asked.

“Whatever it was that killed Mom was standing over my crib. I can’t help but feel like she died because of me.”

Immediately her eyes went wide and she was awake. “No,” Bobbie said. “Don’t. Whatever killed her is at fault. Even if it had to do with you it was its decision. You are not to blame for Mom and if you ever say that again and I’m gonna smack you in the back of the head.” Tears threatened to flood her eyes but she managed to pull them back. Her head still hurt too much to exacerbate it with tears.

“You smack hard. I don’t want that.”

“So don’t say it ever again.”

Easier said than done. Probably impossible. But he’d try.

-

Stepping up to the door of their old house was like being transferred back in time. It looked the same as it had all those years ago. Obviously, it had been rebuilt since then but to Bobbie it was still shrouded in darkness. 

Sam didn’t see it that way and she thanked the stars above for that. To him it looked like the normal life he’d never truly had, that thing in pictures that grounded him after the worst of cases. He offered to be the one to knock on the door, so she stood back, blinded by the morning sun as Sam rapped on the door of their past. “Hello?” 

Wow, she really looks like Mom, Bobbie thought. It was just another reason that being back here and Sam’s dreams couldn’t possibly be a good thing. Dean went off hunter’s instinct and tried passing them all off as agents before Sam just came clean. “We’re Sam, Dean and Bobbie Winchester,” he said, pointing to the three of them. “This actually used to be our old house. We were in town and wondered if we might be able to take a look around, for old times’ sake.”

A look of recognition crossed her eyes as she welcomed them inside.

Dean raised an eyebrow in Bobbie’s direction. “That’s actually the last thing I want,” he muttered.

Neither of them wanted to go back inside, but it was actually Dean who placed his hand on Bobbie’s arm, giving her a small squeeze of reassurance as they stepped over the threshold in the holder of their worst memories. They could do this. It was just like any other case, right? They had to investigate. “I actually found some of your pictures in the basement,” the woman, Jenny, said. So that’s why she’d let three strangers into her house. Honestly, Bobbie was surprised that everything hadn’t been lost in the fire. “You have such a cute family.”

Had actually. Now it was mangled and fucked up to almost beyond recognition.

In the kitchen, Bobbie noticed a few updates, but the layout was still the same. The refrigerator was still in the same place. The stove, though new, looked similar to the one they’d had 20-plus years ago. The little girl, Jenny’s daughter Sari, however looked ill at ease to say the least. Her eyes fixed far off in the distance despite the fact that she should’ve been doing homework.

“So what brought you here?” Dean asked, noticing the cardboard boxes scattered around the house. 

Jenny told them about needing a fresh start after the end of her marriage. All three siblings couldn’t help feel like this woman deserved more after going through that heartache – and she wasn’t going to get it here. “How are you liking it so far?” He continued.

She opened her mouth to speak but then stopped. “I don’t mean to be rude. I’m sure you all have a lot of good memories here-“ Umm…no. “But the house does have its issues. The lights flicker a lot. The sink is backed up. There are rats in the basement.”

Bobbie released a breath through her nose that she didn’t realize she was holding. “Have you seen rats? Or just heard a noise? Like a scratching.”

“Yea. How did you know?”

“Ask them if it was here when they lived here,” the little girl said.

“What?” Sam asked.

Jenny tried to do what most parents did, wave away childish dreams and fears on instinct but Bobbie had noticed Sari’s discomfort the instant she stepped into the kitchen. “There’s something in my closet,” she said softly. “It’s on fire.”

\- 

Shit. Shit. SHIT!

As they walked out of the house, Sam had to keep his voice low. “We have to get them out of there.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Dean asked. It wasn’t as if they could barge right in there and tell this woman her house was haunted by something none of them could name or describe, that it had killed their mother and might want to kill them too. 

“We tell her. She has a right to know.” Sam had the right intentions but that wasn’t going to work. It was against that unspoken hunter policy.

Bobbie got out of her own head for two seconds to shake some sense into Sam. “She’ll think we’re insane and she’ll never let us in there again. Then we can’t do anything to help them.”

“We’ll have to find another way,” Dean said as the three of them made their way back to the Impala. Since the gas tank was low anyway, Dean drove them to the nearest place to fill up so they could kill two birds with one stone and hopefully clear their heads. “Okay, okay.” Dean gathered his face in his hands and took a deep breath. “This isn’t just another case to us, but it is just another case. So what would we normally do?”

“Interview neighbors. See if they remember anything from back then. Talk to the people who owned the house previously, which in this case would be us,” Bobbie said on autopilot. 

Sam added. His specialty of course. “Research.”

“So that’s where we start,” Dean replied.

“Well, what do you guys remember?” Sam asked. “Like really remember. Maybe there’s something in your stories that can put us on the path to some answers.”

“Don’t you think we’d have found whatever it was by now?” Dean asked.

“For all intents and purposes, I have fresh eyes. Maybe I will notice something.”

That made sense, though neither of the older Winchesters wanted to tell the tale again. “I was a really light sleeper,” Dean started. He wasn’t anymore. Especially if he drank, then he was out like a freaking light. “I heard Bobbie’s footsteps so I got up to see what was wrong. Then we were on our way out of the house. Then we were out and Dad was behind us.” He remembered feeling scared, but aside from that and those few minor details, he couldn’t remember much. He’d barely been three at the time.

“Bobbie?”

She swallowed back the bile that had been building in her throat. “I heard Mom scream, but I figured Dad would see what was wrong so I stayed in my room, but then I heard him scream Mom’s name.”

Dean and Sam knew that John had been the one to find Mary on the ceiling, but somehow it felt even more real now that Bobbie had said as much. She’d heard their father in a moment of pure terror. “When I heard him scream, I got up. He was already in the hallway with you in his arms,” she said, glancing up at Sam. “He gave you to me and I clutched you against my chest and ran. Dad never looked so scared. I pulled Dean by the collar of his pajama shirt because he was so confused as to where Mom and Dad were and why they weren’t coming with us.”

“You carried me out?” Sam asked. He’d never known that before.

Nodding, she finished off retelling the painful memory. “I still feel the heat from the fire. I can still feel the weight of the necklace Mom and Dad had given me.”

“You had a necklace?” Dean asked. Bobbie didn’t wear jewelry. 

“It was just a cross – plain silver, but in that moment I stopped believing in God, so I ripped it off and threw it on the floor.”

God had forsaken her, so she forsook him too.  
\----

Part 3

“You don’t believe in God?” Sam asked. For some reason it hurt him to know that.

Bobbie shook her head, lip quivering as the reality of that settled in again. She believed in something – in destiny – but the God her parents had told her about, the one that would always keep her family safe – no. That belief was long gone. It always put on the verge of tears. She wanted to believe so badly. That childhood desire was so hard to shake. “I don’t know how to anymore. Not after what we’ve seen. What we’ve been through.”

“And Dad never had any theories about what it was that killed Mom?” Dean asked, removing the gas nozzle from the tank of the Impala and placing it back at the pump.

For all John Winchester new about the supernatural, he could never figure out what came after their family that night. He never even had an inkling about what it was that had changed their lives forever. “No. Not that he ever said aloud. And I think he would’ve if he’d had any clue.”

“Before we do anything else, we should probably go grab a motel room and do a little research,” Dean said, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. 

Bobbie and Sam went into the convenience store to grab some food and energy drinks that were undoubtedly taking years off their lives, but it didn’t matter. There were pressing matters at hand.

Alone outside, Dean inhaled a shaky breath and walked around the corner of the convenience store, where he was blocked by rickety metal walls, some wooden debris, a payphone and a dumpster. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed his father’s number for the umpteenth time. Why wouldn’t he pick up the phone? Something had to be wrong. “Dad, it’s me. It’s Dean.” His voice wavered with each word. Being home scared him more than he wanted to admit. “Dad, I’m in Lawrence with Bobbie and Sam. There’s something in our old house.” He felt the nervousness rattle in his chest. “I don’t know what to do. None of us do. Please…I need your help.”

Bobbie and Sam would probably prefer not having his help. Both held grudges they had trouble looking passed, but he wasn’t afraid to admit – at least to himself – that he needed his father now more than ever. 

-

Being the mother of two active children, trying to unpack and keeping track of every repair person that needed to come into the house had to be the equivalent of two full-time jobs – and in a couple of days she had to go back to work. Yay.

As Jenny invited the plumber inside, she held her hand to the cellphone so the man that would be coming in to fix the stove wouldn’t get caught between conversations. “Thank you so much for coming,” she said, shaking the man’s hand. She pointed toward the living room. “If you need anything, I’ll be in here.”

“No problem, Ma’am.”

“And please excuse the boxes,” she said sheepishly. She hated clutter. It made her feel like she was out of control. “Still haven’t unpacked everything yet.”

He gave her a warm smile, his toolbox feeling weighty in his hand and waved it off. “It’s nothing. I’ve seen it all.” He really had. And heard it all too. It was crazy what people would say and do in front of someone they didn’t know and would porbably never see again. 

In all likelihood, this was going to be an easy fix. From what she’d said on the phone, it sounded like he would be able to be in and out of this house fairly quickly with a job well done. It was a nice little house. Once the clutter was taken care of and the house looked lived in, it would be even more inviting than it already was.

Kneeling down in front of the sink, he searched around the piping to see if anything of import stood out, but there was nothing. As a matter of fact, the pipes had next to no wear, like they were new. If he was sticking his hand in the sink, he needed to unplug the garbage disposal, so he tugged on the wire and stood up to do the necessary dirty work.

He rubbed his hands together and the friction created a warm, tingly feeling that he needed in the sudden chill of the house before he got back up and checked out the sink. He was going to have to stick his hand in there to figure things out. Gross, but someone had to do it. 

Just as he was about to put his hand into the drain, he was startled by a kids’ toy. It was one of those creepy monkeys with the cymbals and it was clicking and clacking all on its own. Brushing it off, he returned to his duties, the rhythmic sound of the toy floating into the background, so much so that he never even noticed it stopped.

His hand slunk down into the drain as it had so many times before and he thought he felt something, but when he pulled his hand out there was nothing there. “Oh well,” he muttered. Back down he went. 

When he felt around again, he found nothing. What could possibly be wrong with this thing? The monkey toy turned on again and startled him just as the garbage disposal turned on, crushing bone and slicing skin until there was little left of the fingers that had gone in, the remnants falling out of the bottom of the open pipe while blood-curdling screams filled the house.

-

Something felt especially wrong about approaching their father’s old friends under false pretenses, but they needed answers about John and not the sanitized ones they’d get if they came forward as his children. Despite what they did, Bobbie really did hate lying, but sometimes bad things were done with good intention so she held on to that. 

Just two minutes down the road from their old place was one of John’s mechanic friends. Apparently, they’d been friends since they were kids. Astonishing what a lifelong vendetta could do to a friendship. “Hi, Jim Gibson?” Bobbie asked, approaching the older, seasoned gentlemen with an outstretched hand and a perkier-than-usual smile. “My name is Officer Perry. These are my partners, Officers Smith and Springs. We were wondering if you might have a couple moments to answer some questions about John and Mary Winchester.

Confusion stained his face. He hadn’t been asked about John in years and Mary even longer. “About what?”

According to police reports, Mary died in a fire due to an electrical short, so Sam thought on his feet. “Well, a couple months ago John came into the station claiming that it wasn’t an electrical fire that killed his wife. We decided to look into it to placate him, but now we can’t find him either.”

Mr. Gibson shook his head, defeated that his friend has slipped so far into such a dangerous delusion. “I don’t what I’ll be able to help you with, but sure, shoot.”

“What do you remember about John?” Dean asked.

Gibson’s answers were just as Bobbie would’ve expected. “John was a stubborn bastard.” If that wasn’t the understatement of the century, she wasn’t sure what was. But he loved their mother more than anything. “And those kids,” he said with a faint trace of a smile. “Those kids were his entire world. After Mary died, he didn’t smile much, but when he talked about his daughter and sons his face lit up.”

Bobbie held back a quivering lip and glanced to the side, seeing the look of shock on Sam’s face. “Did he ever talk about that night?” Sam wondered. There were so many times that he wished their father had been upfront with him about what happened – how he felt.

“John wasn’t thinkin’ straight,” he said, elaborating a bit when he met Dean’s expression. “He kept claiming that it was something, not someone, but something that killed her. It was an electrical short. A tragic accident. I begged him to get help but he spiraled so much that he even went to see a psychic, Moseley-something.”

After a few more questions that basically got them nowhere, the Winchesters left and immediately Dean’s hands slipped into Baby’s glove compartment to grab their father’s journal. “What’s up, Dean?” Bobbie quickly caught the journal and flipped toward one of the pages her brother described. When he pointed at the line she finally realized what had caught his attention. “Moseley. Missouri Moseley. I always thought this meant the state.” He said he’d ‘gone to Missouri and learned the truth.’

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re finally getting somewhere.”

-

As soon as they walked into the warmth of Missouri’s home, which doubled as her place of work, Bobbie felt a welcoming vibe. She didn’t remember a lot about Missouri except that she was a legit psychic and not a dime-store sellout. Sitting down in the corridor, they waited for her to finish up with a client. It sounded like he wanted answers to marriage problems and honestly Bobbie wasn’t sure which problem she’d rather have. The supernatural or the real world. Somehow placing your faith in another human being only to have them betray your trust seemed worse than a vampire or a werewolf. 

About 10 minutes later, she finished up and walked him to the door, mumbling something about ‘poor bastard’ as she closed the door behind him. “Sam, Dean, Bobbie,” she said, her voice smooth like whiskey. “You’ve all grown up so much. So handsome. So beautiful. Let me look at you.” She pinched Bobbie’s cheeks and she didn’t actually want to kill her. That said a lot for Missouri’s effect on people. “Which is really saying something because you were a weird looking child,” she continued, pointing to Dean. All the ladies threw themselves in his direction now, but before he hit the age of 10, Dean was a little string bean. 

Reaching out, she grabbed Sam’s hands in her own and sighed. “I’m so sorry about your girlfriend…and your father.”

“How did you-?” Sam started. He’d met some psychics that could pass for real, but Missouri was the real deal and Sam wasn’t exactly sure how to feel. 

With a reassuring squeeze, she let go. “I can sense it.”

“Do you know where he is?” Bobbie asked hopefully.

“I’m not a magician,” she sassed. “I sense energies and emotions.”

Frustration plagued Dean’s entire being. Every time they got close to an answer it seemed they took five steps back. “Then what good are you?”

“I’m not a compass, boy. Now sit. And don’t even thinking about putting your foot on the coffee table.”

Dean’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t even-“

“You were thinking it.”

Sam and Bobbie suppressed a laugh before the mood changed. “What do you remember about first meeting our father?” Sam asked.

She started wearily and almost guiltily. “He was desperate for answers and insisted that something other than an electrical fire took your mother. I told him about what was out there. What was truly out in the world.”

Dean spoke softly. “Do you know what killed our mother?”

She shook her head and Bobbie felt that small inkling of hope slip away. “No, but I had a bad feeling. You think something is back there?”

All three of them nodded. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the place and it seems like something is there again. Some kind of bad energy, but I can’t place it.”

“Why is it acting up now?” Sam wondered. His dreams about the house sprung to mind, but he didn’t want to bring them up. Now that they were here with Missouri he had a feeling he might know what these dreams actually were, but he wasn’t sure if he was strong enough for the answer just yet.  
\----

Part 4

Inside the former Winchester home, Jenny paced the wood floors talking to an attorney over the phone. This was the last thing she needed. “I don’t understand how I’m in any way liable for any of this,” she said exasperatedly. “Don’t get me wrong, I feel awful that he got hurt inside my home, but I had nothing to do with it. He even said himself that he’d unplugged the garbage disposal, so what happened made no sense. It’s no one’s fault!”

With the combination of two young children and being a single mother, Jenny didn’t have any cash to pay out to this man nor did she have enough to hire a good lawyer. But the plumber was determined. His hand was mangled beyond all recognition and without it he couldn’t continue making a living the way he was. He was desperate for some kind of financial resolution so he was pushing his own lawyer toward a case. 

In her frustration, Jenny climbed the stairs, walking anywhere and everywhere to get rid of all her nervous energy, leaving her little boy Ritchie downstairs in his playpen.

When she left him alone, the pin holding the gate up started to wriggle in place, moving upward slowly but surely until it fell to the floor. The child looked at it quizzically but didn’t bother to question it. He was glad to be out. Mommy never let him run around without her there, so it got a little boring inside that pen. He really wanted some juice.

Just like that the refrigeration popped open. Yay, he thought. Maybe there was juice inside. The moment he walked up to the appliance that had to be three times his size he heard a soft voice whisper. “Juice.” There was his cup sitting right in the middle. It was a little hot outside too so he decided to sit inside and take a sip. But climbing inside had been a mistake. It closed by itself and now he couldn’t get out.

Five minutes later, Jenny returned from upstairs, her body overheated and jumpy from the conversation she’d just finished. She had no idea what she was going to do if this guy’s lawyer decided he had enough evidence to go forward with a case. 

When she walked into the kitchen again, her eyes immediately darted to gate of the playpen that had somehow managed to fall to the floor. “Ritchie?” 

She called for him again and again, panic seeping through her with each second she couldn’t hear his voice. He couldn’t have gotten far, right? He couldn’t have gotten outside; she had the back door locked. Jenny got dizzy from spinning around and around trying to find her son when she noticed the childproof lock on the refrigerator had come open.

“Oh, thank God,” she breathed when she saw him sitting there. The normally independent little boy enveloped her in a hug and for a few seconds all of her other troubles, with this house, with the plumber and the lawyer, it all vanished into thin air. Ritchie was okay. Sari was okay. That was all that mattered.

-

The knock on the front door fried Jenny’s nerves but she went to answer it anyway and saw the Winchester kids and a friendly-looking black woman that she’d seen around town once or twice. “This is a friend of ours, Missouri Moseley and we were wondering if we could show her the house,” Sam said.

“I’m really sorry, but I actually have a lot on my plate at the moment. Would you mind coming back another time?” Jenny asked, practically on the verge of tears.

Missouri called out the siblings’ insensitivity and noted that Jenny seemed frazzled. “We know something is wrong with the house,” she started. “You feel it too. Nothing ever seems right. If you trust us, we can help you.”

Since the moment they’d moved in, Jenny felt something – a weight or a memory that wouldn’t quite let her family settle in, but she had just brushed it off as dealing with change. “Okay,” she breathed, standing back from the doorway to let them in. Maybe they could find something to explain what had turned on the garbage disposal when it had been unplugged.

“Trust us,” she repeated, walking into the house and allowing whatever darkness was there to guide her in the right direction.

At the top of the stairs, Bobbie turned on the EMF meter, but it didn’t do anything.

Thee four of them stopped in a room that didn’t have anything in it at the moment. “There’s a dark energy in here.”

Bobbie knew why. “But the EMF meter isn’t saying anything.”

“Amateurs,” Missouri teased. 

The oldest Winchester placed the meter back in her jacket pocket and felt a shiver roll up her spine. “What’s in here?” Sam asked.

“If I’m right, this was your nursery, Sammy.” All of the children glanced at the ceiling, their gazes fixed on the pristine paint. How could it be that their mother had been there? Her blood staining the memory of their childhoods as the flames engulfed her body? It didn’t seem real.

Missouri moved slowly around the room, allowing her hands to glide over the walls. Even for a seasoned psychic, she felt uneasy here. “There is something here, but it’s not the thing that took your mom.” She walked over to the closet where Sari had seen the flaming figure. “There’s more than one spirit here.”

“How? Why?” Dean asked, feeling his chest tighten. He wanted out of here more than anything. 

“After what happened to you, this place became a magnet for the paranormal,” Missouri stated. “When something that horrific happens it leaves a scar like any other damage would do. It’s like an infected wound.” For a few moments, the children and the psychic turned over all the facts in their minds in an attempt to place what was happening here, but to no avail. “The first being is a poltergeist, but the second…I can’t place it.”

Bobbie could feel it in her bones. That family wasn’t going to last another week in that house without some kind of intervention, so back at Missouri’s place, the four of them put together some gris-gris bags. “What’s even in these?” She asked.

She was aware of hoodoo bags and hex bags that were said to ward of evil spirits, but surprisingly she and Dean had never come across them before. Of course, Missouri had everything they needed. “Some angelica root, van van oil, some crossroads dirt and a couple other things,” she said, not wanting to waste time on explanations. “We need to wrap these all up and place one bag each in the north, south, east and west walls of the house on all floors. We can each take some and as long as they’re in place, the spirits should stay away.”

“We have to get them out of the house as we’re doing this,” Dean said, thankful that both his siblings were behind him. 

“I’ll take care of that,” Missouri said. Maybe they could add her to the team. She seemed to know what she was doing.

-

With the hex bags in hand, they made their way back to Jenny’s place and convinced them to head out to the movies. Since the house seemed to be toying with anyone that came inside, it wouldn’t take it long to figure out that the four inhabitants were there to drive spirits away. Jenny and the kids couldn’t be here for that.  
Sam closed the door behind the young family and each of them went their separate ways. Dean and Sam took the top floor, Bobbie took the first floor and Missouri headed down to the basement. They’d made quite a few extras so each of the siblings took one for their future travels. 

As soon as Missouri stepped into the basement, she felt the house’s spirits begging her to leave. “Bite me,” she muttered. The hammer in her hand pounded away at the walls, leaving holes just big enough for her to place bags in three of the four walls. When she was about to place the fourth, a cabinet that had been a recent purchase of Jenny’s flew across the room and pinned her to the wall.

Upstairs, Bobbie got to two of the four walls, before tripping on a wire she could’ve sworn wasn’t there previously to place the third. The kitchen was the last place that needed a hex bag. It made her the most nervous since this is where Jenny’s issues with the place tended to be strongest. 

Another hole was made in the drywall above the stove but before Bobbie could place the bag the kitchen table flew in her direction. She lunged at the wall and threw the bag inside, ducking behind the table just quickly enough to evade the knives that flew from the butcher’s block. “Shit! Hurry!” She screamed. “Be careful.”

Missouri yelled back that she was pinned but her bags were placed. They were waiting on Sam and Dean now. She watched over and over again as knives of different sizes pierced the oak wood of Jenny’s kitchen table.

Dean heard the chaos down below and ran as fast as he could. He placed one of the bags and ran to the other room he needed to take care of only to find out that he’d left the hammer behind. “No time,” he muttered, punching the drywall with all of his might. He hated this house now anyway. Getting his anger out was probably helpful. That’s what he’d tell himself anyway. 

With the other bag in place, he went toward where Sam was headed and found one of his bags already taken care of. In what would’ve been their parents’ master bedroom, he found Sam on the floor with a lamp cord around his neck. Dean fell to the floor beside him and slipped his fingers in between the cord and Sam’s neck, pulling with all of his might. No matter what he did, the grip just got tighter. Sam could feel the breath leaving him but with every faculty he had left he pointed toward the last bag. Dean had been so focused on Sam that he hadn’t even noticed. The second it was placed in the wall, a flash of light burst from the house taking the spirits with it. 

Free from the dangers that had been flying toward them, Missouri found Bobbie and the two went upstairs to see Dean cradling Sam. At first, the worst flashed through Bobbie’s mind, but then she saw him breathing. “What the hell happened?” She asked.

“Cord- around my neck. But I’m okay.”

She would’ve never forgiven herself had he not been.  
\----

Part 5

Although it felt like a few chaotic minutes, it had taken the foursome almost the full two hours to banish the spirits from the house. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief except Sam who still seemed tense. Bobbie chalked it up to having nearly been choked to death by a lamp cord and moved on, glancing up to see Jenny and the kids coming back up the steps.

The house was a disaster area. Oops.

Jenny walked into the kitchen looking lighter than she had since they’d met. Maybe the time away just to do something fun with her kids had helped or maybe she could sense that the spirits that haunted them were gone. “What happened here?” She asked, staring in disbelief at the absolute mess that was her kitchen. It looked like a tornado had hit it. 

“Don’t worry,” Missouri said quickly. “The kids will clean this up. Yes you will. Don’t cuss at me.”

Bobbie snorted. She hadn’t voiced a thing and neither had Dean but somehow she knew what they were going to say anyway. It took them nearly another two hours to clean everything up, but Jenny didn’t care. She could actually feel the difference and was just grateful that she and her kids could truly move forward now.

Saying their goodbyes went as it normally did with whoever it was confused but grateful. However, Sam still looked uneasy. “Can we stay?” He asked. “I have a bad feeling.”

“It’s all gone, Sam,” Dean replied. 

Sam still felt a weight on his soul. “I’m not so sure.”

Dean wanted to go to sleep on an actual bed but both he and Bobbie relented, curling back into the leather seats of the Impala to catch the occasional z’s. Sam watched the house steadfast, unable to shake the feeling he had.

After an hour or so, Sam glanced at his siblings and back toward the house where he saw Jenny banging against the window. “Guys!”

Bobbie and Dean snapped to attention, catching a glimpse of what Sam had seen before running out of the car. “Dean get Jenny, I’ll get Ritchie, Sam get Sari!”

Their feet pounded against the asphalt, the grass, the pathways and the wooden floors, nothing impeding their movements. 

When Dean got to Jenny’s bedroom, the door wouldn’t unlock. “Stand back!” Wood splintered under the heel of his boot and he grabbed her by the arm, yanking her toward safety. 

“I have to get my kids!”

“Sam and Bobbie have them! We have to go!” He screamed. If he could barely breathe in this moment, he hated to think how his sister would’ve felt, knowing it was their lives at stake and not a stranger’s. 

Sam bounded up the stairs and into Sari’s room where he was greeted by the visage of the flaming figure, the heat almost enough to blow him back. However, the frightened little girl pushed him forward and he picked her up, carrying her frozen frame down the steps, where he met Bobbie with Ritchie.

Out of nowhere she was knocked to the ground. 

Sam shoved Ritchie in his sister’s direction. “Take your brother outside as fast as you can! Don’t look back!” And with that he was dragged back toward the kitchen and an unknown fate.

As soon as the kids were safe outside, Bobbie ran toward Sam but was immediately pushed backward into the wall, something holding her in place by her stomach/ Screaming hoarsely, she reached toward Sam, now pinned against the opposite wall by his throat. 

The smashing of the front door confirmed what Bobbie feared, that Dean was on his way in to help. “Dean, get out!” She screamed.

“Not happening!” The figure walked slowly toward them unafraid in the face of Dean’s axe. 

Sam could barely speak, but what he could get out caught his brother and sister off guard. “Wait!”

“What?”

“I know who it is,” he gasped.

Eyes wide, they watched as the flames dissipated and revealed her standing there in a white nightgown. “Mom?” Bobbie breathed.

Mary turned around, smiling softly at her little girl as she nodded. “It’s going to be okay.”

A sea of emotions swept through Dean, threatening to drown him where he stood. “Hi, honey.” She had so much she wanted to apologize for and not enough time to do it, but it was her Sammy that needed it the most. “I’m sorry,” she breathed.

“For what?”

Turning around, Mary looked toward the ceiling, her teeth gritted in anger as she spoke. “Now get away from my kids.” The flames returned and she sped toward the ceiling taking whatever had Sam and Bobbie pinned away with her, only bits of ash now floating in the moonlight coming in from the kitchen window.

“It’s over,” Sam said. He was sure of it now.

-

The next morning, Sam, Dean and Bobbie returned to Jenny to retrieve the pictures that had somehow remained all these years. Something had Missouri tentative as she approached the house again and when she took a seat next to Sam, he finally figured out what it was. “Sam, I’m sorry. You sensed it was still here even when I couldn’t.”

“What’s happening to me?” He was so scared. He’d been frightened before, wondering when his father was going to return or if he would return, but this was something else entirely.

Missouri didn’t know. Not for sure. She had an inkling that he was a psychic like her – even more intuitive – but she couldn’t say why it was happening now. The two said their goodbyes and she made them all promise not to be strangers.

Once the kids were gone, she assured Jenny that if she ever needed anything she shouldn’t hesitate to call her. She walked into her house feeling exhausted, like she could sleep for a year, but there was someone here. “He has such abilities,” she said softly, knowing who sat on the couch in her office. “Even greater than mine.”

A smirk passed her lips when she saw John sitting there. “Mary?” When she nodded, John breathed a small sigh of relief. “She saved the kids?”

“Gave her spirit up to do it.”

Looking down at him, she shook her head. “I could slap you, John Winchester. Go talk to your children.”

“I can’t,” he replied, twisting the wedding ring around his finger. “Not yet. Not until I have answers.”

-

Instinct was telling Dean to put rubber to the road and drive away from this town as fast as he could, but Bobbie wasn’t having it. Not when they’d worked so hard and her name twin, their Uncle Bobby, was nearby. “We deserve a break,” she said emphatically, grabbing her brothers’ shoulders from the back seat. “Let’s go see Bobby, have some drinks, eat some real food…remember what family is like for a hot second before we get back on the road. We deserve it.”

Bobbie was afraid there was going to be more of a fight but when Dean turned the Impala in Bobby’s direction she let go of that fear.

Smiles crawled onto their faces as they drove onto the lot of auto shop. The stink of motor oil called back memories of home. Growing up, if it hadn’t been for Bobby, none of them would’ve had any memories of a childhood or a sense of normalcy.

Bobby was the one who helped with homework even though he was fairly hopeless in that area himself. Bobby was the one that cooked hot dogs in a giant pasta pot and called it dinner. Bobby was the one that took them to the park to play catch with a Frisbee or teach them how to ride a bike. And he was the one that even went toe-to-toe with John on occasion to call him out for such crappy parenting. 

The rumble of Baby’s engine must’ve called him outside because as she left the car, her Uncle’s beard, brown with specks of gray, appeared before her, hiding a soft smile that only seemed to sneak out in her and her brothers’ presence. “Hey, my sweet girl.” Bobby wrapped his arms around his namesake and squeezed her tight. She molded herself into him, the scent of his cheap whiskey, cologne that was a bit too strong and motor oil calming her to her core.

When he let go, she felt at ease again, watching as he hugged her younger brothers. “You giving her a tough time?”

“Always,” Dean said with pride, laughing when Bobby smacked him in the back of the head. That’s where Bobbie had gotten it from.

Sam began to regal him with how they’d ended up in the area and why he wasn’t even in school anymore. “I’m sorry about your girl, kid.” He wanted to ask about the dreams, about seeing Mary – he wanted more detail, but he could see by Bobbie’s face that they were here to let it go, at least for a while. “Come on in.”

Inside, Bobby brought out the beers and handed them to the boys who were already on the couch ready to watch a football game. Other people, the ones that weren’t hunters, called things like this trivial. Maybe it was. But watching her brothers relaxed and smiling made this trivial thing every ounce worth it. Bobby came to her side and passed her one of the other beers. “How are you, B?”

“Tired,” she said. “But we’re all alive another day so I’ll count my blessings.” They clinked glasses to sentiment and Bobbie asked if he still had the apple pie recipe that she loved.

Of course he did. He was never a chef…ever. It was a wonder he never burnt his place down, but when the kids finally came into his life he’d wanted to give them something that might remind them of home, so he’d found the recipe. They loved it so much it was all they talked about that week. Although he didn’t make it often (he honestly didn’t think it was all that remarkable), and if he did it tended to be for himself, he never had the heart to let it go. A stickler for the old-fashioned, he’d handwritten it and placed in a sparse recipe box. “You have all the ingredients? Good,” she replied. “I’m gonna make us some pie. Dean loves pie and Sammy’s a clean eating freak but he’ll eat it if he knows it was yours.”

“It wasn’t. I got it out of a recipe book. One of those Suzy homemaker things,” he laughed heartily.

Bobbie didn’t care. “Lie,” she whispered.

She gave Bobby another hug before telling him to get out of her kitchen. She really wasn’t a homebody in any other way but this. Baking calmed her. Plus, the smells always reminded her of the childhood she had before it all went to shit. 

While she stirred together sugar and cinnamon and flour and all sorts of delicious things, Bobbie smiled. Her uncle and brothers were already yelling at the TV about someone’s awful play. It felt like a family moment. Within the hour, the small house was filled with the smells of Christmastime, which was nice because it was nowhere near that time yet. “What’s that smell?” Sam asked.

“Pie, Jerk.”

“Apple?” Dean asked. His ears perked up like a puppy at the possibility of, well…food. 

Nodding, she turned to take it out of the oven and slapped Dean’s hand away to let it cool. Like when they were kids, her brothers sat at the small kitchen table ready for a piece. Bobby sat beside them and they started needling her until she gave in and cut out a steaming hot piece for each of them, raiding Bobby’s fridge to find some vanilla ice cream too. “It’s 11 in the morning,” Bobby said.

“Pie and ice cream for breakfast,” Dean smiled, taking an enormous bite and then hiding the fact that his mouth was on fire. “You’re the best Mom ever.”

“Shut up. Bitch.”

“Ass.”

Bobby rolled his eyes as he took a bite. For some reason it tasted better than it ever had. They were already bickering again. Kids.


	4. Devoid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a string of child suicides pull the Winchesters from the comfort of Bobby's auto garage, Bobbie finds herself literally opening her mind to her brothers in a way she never imagined.
> 
> A/N: My first "case/job" that is not from the show. My first original! <3

Part 1

For the first time in weeks, Jenna could breathe. The incessant oppressive drowning feeling that accompanied seeing your child in any kind of pain had finally left, dissipating as his smile returned; she and Gavin weren’t fighting about how to help him anymore. Everything was okay again.

At the end of the day all she wanted was for her family to be happy and with the nightmares gone from Thomas’ restful hours, they had that back again. As she flitted about the kitchen, dancing to glorious 90s boy-band music, Gavin walked up behind her grateful to see her happy again. This past month had been very difficult for them.

“How’s he doing?” Gavin asked, his lips curling upward into a sleepy smile. At first, she didn’t notice, almost screaming when she finally caught sight of him. “Sorry,” he laughed. Between Thomas’ nightmares and his own work schedule, he’d been exhausted lately, as had she. “Those vitamins helping?” He’d scoffed at the idea that they’d do anything to help their son, but she insisted it would help and Thomas was doing better, so who was he to question the results? 

Since Thomas had come to their room screaming about being chased by a monster in the night, Jenna had been trying anything and everything she could think of to help her little boy banish his bad dreams. After readying Thomas’ pills for the week, she turned to her husband and laughed. “Well, I don’t think it’s really the vitamins,” she said under her breath, not wanting Thomas to accidentally hear her, “So much as the placebo effect. Either way, he said he hasn’t had the nightmare in about four days.” Which was saying something because it had been raging almost every night for a month; it had been keeping him up, making him fall asleep in class and therefore interrupting his school work. He was afraid to turn corners even when he was awake for fear the monster would finally grab him. “I took care of it,” she continued, the smile fading from her face for a moment. “No need to worry anymore.”

“My wife, the miracle worker,” Gavin replied proudly. “You coming to bed soon?”

She kissed her husband’s cheek and told him she’d be right there as soon as she gave Thomas his vitamins and tucked him in for the night. Ever the worrier, she wanted to make sure he was truly okay even though he’d willingly gone into his room tonight.

As she tentatively opened his door, fearing she’d see him shaking up against the wall, she took a cleansing breath. Thomas had a smile on his face again and he was already waiting in bed, tired after a long day of school and play, instead of sitting in the corner of his room, shaking and petrified to get under the covers. He was staring up at the ceiling where the star and moon stickers clung tightly so he could see the universe no matter whether he was inside or out. If Jenna would allow him, Thomas would sleep out under the stars every night. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hey, sweetpea,” she replied. “Feeling okay?”

Thomas nodded and reached out for the vitamins he was more than happy to take if they rid his brain of the bad dreams. He was eight years old; he didn’t want to be sleeping in his mom and dad’s bedroom every night, but he couldn’t help it when that monster lurked behind every corner of his brain. 

Tall and slender and covered in bloodshot eyes that pierced into his soul, it wouldn’t leave him be, threatening to eat him and his mom and dad if he screamed, its voice sending shockwave after shockwave up his spine, like ice on a hot summer day. Thomas shook his head, banishing the evil, beady-eyed monster from his waking thoughts so he could swallow his vitamins. “Yea, mom. I’m good. Just sleepy.”

“Okay, then have sweet dreams baby.” Jenna pulled the covers up around her son’s tiny body. “Dad and I will be in our room if you need us.”

Yawning, he pulled the covers around himself, sheltering himself from the chill in the air and smiled. “I’ll be okay, Mom.”

After placing a kiss on his forehead, Jenna left the room and went to join her husband. Within minutes, the exhausted parents were asleep in a dreamland of their very own, where life was content. They had been dying to go on vacation for years and had been discussing the possibility with Gavin’s extra hours at work. 

Meanwhile, Thomas tossed and turned for a while. He got what his mom called a second wind, but it didn’t last long and after about 30 minutes he was drifting off to sleep himself. 

He hadn’t seen the monster for a few days, so when his brain conjured up a picture of the beach, waves licking at the shoreline as he and his friends made sand castles, he relaxed into his bed. 

Heavy footsteps resounded against the confines of the darkness, its body closing in on the place it had been called to visit: ready, hungry, but wary. Night after night, it did as the woman with the soft voice had asked and rid her son of what plagued him, but the nightmares seemed to be gone and it wanted more…

-

They’d stayed with Bobby for the week while they sought out a case and attempted to figure out where to look for John next. “It’s been dry for a week,” Dean said exasperatedly. He was sitting on the couch, scratching at his elbow, eyes heavy from boredom, fingers still caked with motor oil. When they weren’t watching TV, he was working on Baby. Sam had been pretty quiet most of the week with the exception of watching football, which had never really been his thing, but it brought them all a sense of normalcy so he stuck to it. Bobbie was pretty sure he was in his own head most of the time, but besides that and sports he had his head deep in any and every book on Bobby’s shelves. “And the trail has gone cold for Dad, so what are we supposed to be doing. I feel like shit is going on, but it’s just under the radar so we don’t know about it. Baby is purring and ready to go. I need something.”

He was probably right unfortunately. Unless God decided that he wanted to actually show up and do something and had struck all of the supernatural bullshit from the Earth over the course of the past week, then it was in fact happening under the radar.

Before Bobbie could say anything, a call came in on one of her uncle’s phones. It was actually the one for him and not one of the many law enforcement personas he held in order to help them with cases. “Bobby Singer,” he said upon answering, his eyes immediately darting between all three children. “John, where have you been?”

The copper taste of blood in her mouth made Bobbie unclench the bite hold she had on her tongue. He was alive…and okay…and hadn’t called. “Gimme the phone,” she mouthed, but her Uncle dodged out of the way.

“What the hell?” Sam exclaimed, pushing his hair out from in front of his eyes. “He’s okay?!”

“Why the hell haven’t you called?” Dean screamed. His eyes were full to the brim with tears. They’d called for weeks without any answer from him and now he calls out of nowhere and it’s Bobby instead of one of them. 

Bobby tried to get them to shut up, but when the Winchester siblings wanted answers there was no holding them back. With fire in each step, Bobbie grabbed the phone from her uncle and screamed into the phone. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

John hesitated on the other end, like he was truly hoping to not have to have this conversation over the phone, but then he spoke, his voice so soft that Bobbie almost forgot how pissed she was. Almost being the operative word. “Hey B.”

“Hey? Hey is what you have to say? Dean and I have been calling for weeks. Sam is with us now. He’s been calling you for weeks. We’ve left messages. We’ve tried every phone you own and you just call now? Are you serious?” Bobbie could feel her blood boiling in her veins. Sam looked about the same and Dean, well Dean just looked devastated. “Do you have any idea what not hearing from you has been doing to us?” They’d lost sleep. She and Sam had been getting headaches more often. Dean was drowning his sorrows in booze more than usual.

John was be lucky he wasn’t here right now because if he was, she would’ve been hitting the ever-loving crap out of him. “I needed to get answers for us, Bobbie. For all of us.”

“Answers?”

“About Mom.”

“It’s been over 20 years!” She screeched, suppressing the urge to throw the phone across the room. “You’ve never disappeared and not answered our calls before!” Not for this long, maybe a couple days at a time, but it had been nearly six weeks Dean’s expression had turned from distraught to livid and Sam was on the edge, storming toward Bobbie to rip the phone from her hand. “While you were off chasing a two-decades old mystery, my girlfriend was killed by the same fucking thing! And you were nowhere to be found.” He practically threw the phone in Bobbie’s direction, slamming the door open to the auto lot outside so he could blow off some steam. 

“Bravo, Father of the Year. Not here for your kids…again.” When was enough enough? When was it time to let go of the past and focus on the now?

He stammered his apologies but she wasn’t having it and neither was Dean. He screamed again loud enough so John could hear. “Why did you even call?”

“I have a case I need you three to look into while I’m doing this.”

“Oh, the vendetta, right,” she spat sarcastically. “What is the case?”

“I got a call from a friend of a friend that there’s been a string of child suicides in Montana. I’ll send Bobby the coordinates.”

“What makes you think it’s our kind of job?” She asked. She was so tired of this conversation. All she wanted to do right now was to go outside to one of the used, beat up cars and beat the living shit out of it.

His voice was laden with guilt as he explained that all of the children had been under the age of 10, had been ridiculously happy and bright-eyed and within weeks they’d turned into almost zombies, walking around and eating and drinking and going through the motions for the hell of it without any real drive. “I have nothing to go on but my gut, but all of the children being under 10 makes me think it’s something we might be able to handle.”

“Were any of the children bullied?” Bobbie asked. She was numb now, turning around to see that Dean had left, undoubtedly off to find Sam. 

“No. That was the first thing I asked. All popular, well-adjusted kids.”

Wonder what that was like.

John noticed the hesitation and smoothed over it. “Please, Bobbie. While I’m doing this, please look into this for me.” As much as she wanted to punch him right now, if he had a gut feeling, they needed to follow it. He was rarely wrong about this kind of thing. 

“Fine. Go do whatever the hell it is you’re doing and your kids will take care of themselves. Not like we’re not used to it by now.” When she slammed the phone down, the first hot tears slipped down her cheeks.

“You okay?” Bobby asked, his gruff voice the only thing holding her together.

She shook her head and turned defeated to walk outside. He meant well, but the question, like her, was tired. “No, Bobby. I’m really not.”

-

Outside, she saw Sam taking a crowbar to an old car on Bobby’s lot. Dean threw in a hit for good measure and once she arrived Bobbie snapped the crowbar away and got in a few hits of her own. “You all feeling better now?” Bobby asked. It was tough love time.

“No.” They all said simultaneously. 

Sam huffed and puffed wanting nothing more than to go back to bed. “What did he say?”

“What you heard,” Bobbie mumbled. “And then that he thought there was a job in Montana.”

After Bobbie told them what he’d said, Dean shrugged. “It could be an us thing. It could be nothing, but I was getting antsy before and now I’m pissed and need to refocus.”

“So you wanna go?” Bobbie asked.

“No…but yes. If I sit around here, especially after that call, I’m going to lose my mind.”

Bobbie was pretty sure all of their brains were already mush. 

They finally all cooled off enough to the point of thinking rationally and went back inside to grab everything they’d strewn about Bobby’s place over the course of the past week. “Call me if you need anything okay?” He asked as he kissed her forehead before passing her a piece of paper with the coordinates they needed.

“We will,” she smiled sadly.

Dean relented and let her drive. As she hopped in the driver’s seat, Sam and Dean gave Bobby hugs goodbye, holding on just a little tighter than they had before. Hopefully they wouldn’t need Bobby’s help, considering he helped a range of hunters across the United States with his various personas, but if they needed him, Bobbie knew he’d be there. 

\---

Part 2

It took a full two days of little food, few stops for gas and even less sleep for them to make it to Hardin, Montana. “Cops, nap, research,” Dean said, pulling off the exit ramp.

“No, research, cops, nap,” Bobbie replied. They needed to get ahead of whatever this was.

Sam barely even opened his eyes in the backseat, but he was insistent. “Both wrong. We’re all about to pass out. Let’s grab a motel room and power nap for 30 or 40 minutes, then we can go to the cops and gather the information we need so the research we do doesn’t get influenced in any way. It makes the most sense…and I’m too tired for this shit.”

She wanted to fight it, but Sam was right. They were all exhausted – physically and emotionally. No matter how mad she was at their father, if he felt there was a job here, there probably was – and she wanted to get to it. But they’d booked it here so fast that the need for sleep was outweighing everything else, so the second Dean saw a motel in Hardin he pulled into a parking lot, they gave their fake credit cards in for a room and crapped out. It was nearly an hour and a half later than Bobbie woke up in a cold sweat.

She screamed so loud that Sam and Dean shot up from the bed and the couch. “What the hell was that?” Sam asked.

Dean replied while his sister tried to catch a breath. “Nightmare. She always has one of two. One is about the night mom died and the other she won’t tell me.”

Sam glanced her way expectantly. “You always tell us you want us to be open about this kind of shit and then you keep that inside?”

Bobbie wiped her forehead, the sweat cool to the touch and clammy. “I’ll make you a deal, Sammy. You tell me what’s been keeping you up at night lately, and give me more than ‘nightmares about Jessica’ and I’ll give you a peek into my fucked up brain.”

Without missing a beat, Sam spat out that he blamed himself for what happened with Jess – not that he could’ve stopped it considering they didn’t know what it was – but he did have the dreams and said nothing and had accompanied Dean and herself, leaving Jessica all alone. “It was not your fault and you know it.”

“And undoubtedly whatever is going on in your head isn’t your fault either, but you’re blaming yourself, huh?” Sam was determined to get something out of her, even though opening himself up so candidly had taken even him off guard. “So what are you blaming yourself for Bobbie?”

“Nothing,” she replied, grabbing a glass of water and gulping it down in three or four big sips. “Yet. The other dream I have, besides Mom, is always about you two.”

“What?” Dean’s head left his hands and turned toward her. “What about us?”

“It’s always the same. I’m not getting deep into it now because we have work to do, but it always involves you two fighting in the Impala, me mediating and then you Dean, crashing the car. It spins out and we all end up in a lake. You’re both stuck in your seatbelts and I can’t get you out. I live. You die. There’s a voice telling me ‘it’s all your fault, you’ve failed me’ and then I wake up,” she said quickly, her voice shaking with each word. She didn’t want to recount this again. She didn’t want to think about it. With her eyes open, neither Dean nor Sammy could reach out for her as they took their last breath – not if she had anything to say about it. “Let’s get going, okay?”

“Bobbie, you have to-“ Sam started, but she cut him off with the flick of her hand. 

“There’s nothing I can do about it, so let’s stop talking about it and focus on some people that need our help.”

Dean wasn’t about to let it go and neither was Sam, but they knew better than to test her right now. “Okay, let’s go.”

-

After introducing themselves to the local police as Agents Acer, Vanir and Laird, Dean asked Chief Goldstein if he could tell them anything about the child suicides in the area. “Anything you can tell us would be helpful.”

“Is this even in your jurisdiction?” He asked.

“Believe it or not yes,” Sam replied quickly. “The FBI sometimes conducts what we call an equivocal death investigation, which basically means the case has lingering questions. We can end up classifying the deaths as homicides, suicides, natural causes, accidents or something unknown. This fits that perfectly considering the kids were all so young and so well adjusted.”

With his question answered, Goldstein pulled out the files on the three children that had died over the course of the past six weeks. “Mia Thomas was seven and drowned in a lake. Her parents claim she was a fantastic swimmer. Nathan Cope was eight years old and found hanging in his closet and Otis Wickens jumped out the window of his doctor’s office building.”

Sam shivered at the image of the latest child jumping out of a building. What could possibly have been so horrible that he would not only take his life, but take it in such a way?

“And none of them had any issues at school? No bullies? Family life okay?” Bobbie questioned. The most likely reason for child suicide would’ve been bullying if she had to put money on it. Either that or issues at home. If it wasn’t that, something supernatural was her next best guess. “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

He repeated himself, saying nothing was wrong with any of the children. Otis had gone first, he was also eight. Nathan next and Mia last. “Otis and Nathan were in the same class,” he said. “So maybe you want to start there.”

“Okay, thanks Chief,” Dean said. “We’ll keep you updated.”

Outside the station, Bobbie, Dean and Sam decided to head over to the Wickens’ house first to see if they could interview the grieving parents. The loss of a child had to be the scariest thing Bobbie could think of. “So what do we think this is?” Sam asked. “If it is something supernatural.”

“Maybe a witch,” Dean said. “The parents are being targeted by way of their kids.”

Bobbie was off in her own world in Baby’s passenger seat. “Possibly, but wouldn’t a witch make it look like an accident or natural so it wouldn’t raise any questions?”

“Could be a dumb witch?” Dean replied, grasping at straws. “The fact that it’s suicide is what you’re hung up on, right?”

“Yea, it’s just…” Her head was pounding, flashes from her ever-present nightmare sporadically running in and out of her brain. “Something’s up.”

-

Stepping up to the Wickens’ home was like stepping toward an open grave. At a closed grave, someone could leave flowers, say a few words, apologize for wrongdoings if there were anyway, but the death was done, smoothed over like the grass that grew on the ground above. At an open grave, death wasn’t real yet, it was like there was still a ray of hope in the air, but a ray of hope that could never actually be fulfilled. It was still too raw to be fully comprehended. It was a ray of hope purely for the sake of pain. The family’s next door neighbors, the entire street seemed like it was at a standstill so that the Wickens could grieve and eventually shovel the dirt into the grave, allowing them all to ‘get back to normal.’ “Let me,” Bobbie said, knocking lightly on the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Wickens? I’m Agent Acer, these are Vanir and Laird. We’re from the FBI.”

“You’re here about Otis?” His mother said, a tear falling from the corner of her eye. “Do we have to go over this again?”

Bobbie was about to reply when Dean chimed in. “Mrs. Wickens, we’re here because the same thing happened to two other children in the area. We’re trying to see if there’s a connection.” His voice was soft and Bobbie could see that he was looking at her in his periphery. “There might be something that could explain why things happened the way they did. Give you some kind of relief.”

A hint of gratitude could be seen, but nothing would bring back her child and that was all she wanted. “I don’t think that’s possible. But please, come in.”

Mr. Wickens came to join her on the couch, fingers intertwined and clinging to each other like they were alone in an open sea. “Can you tell us exactly what happened?” Sam started. “Not at the doctor’s office,” he clarified. “Beforehand. How did his personality change? When did it change?”

“Otis was the happiest boy in the world,” Mr. Wickens began. “He loved soccer and science. Was convinced he was going to be the world’s first professional soccer playing scientist when he got older so he could do it all and then his mood turned sour.”

“When?” Dean asked.

“About three weeks ago?”

Over the next three weeks Otis got worse and worse until that day at the doctor’s office. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen around the time the mood change happened?” Bobbie asked, catching a glimpse of a picture of the happy family and hating how anyone, any deity, could let something so awful happen to another. 

“For a couple of weeks he had nightmares,” his father answered. “About a fire in the house. He never really had nightmares, but that was it in terms of anything out of the ordinary.”

They asked a few more questions, getting it from the source that nothing was happening in school or at home. Brian and Tina Wickens were happily married. They’d had no issues at either of their jobs, so money was secure and Otis had been excelling in school, both intellectually and socially. “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Wickens,” Sam said before they made their way out.

Back in the Impala, Dean asked if they had any ideas. “Because I’m more confused than ever.”

“Me too,” Sam replied.

Bobbie had no idea either. “We still have too little information. Let’s interview the Thomas’ and the Cope family first.”

-

Back at the room later that night, the three siblings poured over the information they had. “All three kids were popular, smart, happy kids, their moods went south and then they ended it all,” Dean said exasperatedly as he paced the floor in front of the two beds. It was taking everything in him not to grab another beer, but he needed to think straight right now. “At seven and eight years old. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What if this isn’t supernatural?” Sam asked.

Of course it was a possibility, but what else could it be? “It’s not homicide because none of them had any other DNA on them other then their own,” Bobbie started, glancing at the papers that Sam had been able to find by hacking the county’s medical system. “The Thomas girl’s drowning could be considered an accident, save for the fact that the parents insist she was a great swimmer. But accidents wouldn’t account for either of the boys’ deaths, because the manners in which they died were far too deliberate. Natural causes could mean it’s some kind of medical issue, but if that were the case, it’s pretty likely that more children would be affected. That leaves us with suicide and unknown cause of death.”

Sam shook his head, his hands clasped in front of his face. “So either, these kids were hiding feelings so tortured that there parents didn’t know and then suffered alone until they killed themselves, or it’s something supernatural that causes suicidal thoughts?”

Dean and Bobbie nodded sadly. Silence hung in the air for a moment until Sam’s eyes went wide. “Wait…”

“What is it?” Dean watched his brother sprint across the room to the bag that held John’s journal. “You think Dad has the answer in there?”

“Possibly,” he said, licking the tips of his fingers as he quickly flipped through the pages. “Here! ‘Bobby and Rufus came across one once apparently, but I still never have. I’m glad I haven’t because I’m not positive I’d know how to kill it.’”

When he turned the journal toward them, the older Winchesters saw a picture of a chimera-looking thing – a monster made up of various animals’ body parts. “A chimera?” Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. “Kind of, but not exactly. A Baku.”

\---

Part 3

Still hungry.

As it lingered among the darkness, a speck of light caught its attention. The grumble in its stomach was magnetic, pulling it toward the light. It didn’t want to feed. Not again. Not here. But the pull was too strong, its desires and innate need forgoing all else. 

Ahead of him, the little boy was wearing an astronaut’s suit. It was still too big for his small body, but the vision was clear and the hope radiating off him so pure and tantalizing. A rocket stood before the young one, ready to shoot off into the stars, where he wanted to be, where he was truly meant to be, exploring the unknown and returning to Earth with firsthand knowledge few others could truly understand. 

This was all he wanted. When he was older, this was what he was going to do. He was going to study and work hard in school and do what he’d always wanted. 

Approaching slowly, it sniffed at the air. The more pure the vision, the more hope in the picture, the more delicious and satisfying it was for it. At first the scent was delicate, hope weaving in each atom, but as it approached it filled its nostrils with the comfort. 

Normal meals were more heady – not all together pleasant, but they were plentiful so it always had its fill. These though…they were fresh, enticing and in such short supply it had little willpower in denying itself, so it did no longer, watching as the picture disappeared before it.

As Thomas slept, the peaceful look on his face faded away, becoming contorted – visibly uncomfortable. He turned over, still asleep, and pulled the blankets tighter to him, while a thin veil of light, something gossamer, emanated from his ear and traveled to the corner of the room where it was lying in wait for its next meal. 

It was like a drug as it traveled its system. Maybe tomorrow night there would be more. More like this. 

Later that morning, Thomas awoke, feeling tired and not in the least bit happy about going to school. All he wanted to do was go back to bed. Maybe get up and play video games, but his mom definitely wasn’t going to let him. 

Reluctantly, he got up and found some clothes to wear to school, getting changed slowly before going downstairs to have some breakfast before leaving.

“How’d you sleep?” His mother asked.

Thomas sighed heavily, his tone curt. “Fine Mom. Just fine.”

“You okay?” She placed the back of her hand on his head to check for a temperature, but he seemed okay. “You’re normally so happy in the morning.” Which was weird because neither she nor Gavin were morning people, so they had no idea where he got it from. “You didn’t have any nightmares again, right? You know you can tell me.”

“I didn’t have any nightmares, Mom,” he snapped, taking the bowl of cereal from her hand so he could just eat and get outside to wait for the bus. “I just don’t feel like going to school.”

He always loved school. Maybe he was just having a bad day. It would pass.

-

“Shit,” Dean said under his breath. “I’ve heard of it from the journal, but refresh me. What the hell is it?”

Bobbie and Dean sat on their respective beds, listening intently, brains moving a mile a minute as they tried to put together a plan. But this was new. This was nothing they’d ever dealt with before. “It’s like a chimera in appearance, but more specific in its destruction,” Sam started. “It can take on a lot of different forms, depending on who you ask, but it’s typically pictured with a bear’s body, an elephant’s nose, a tiger’s feet, and oxen tail and rhinoceros eyes. It’s said that it was created from the spare parts from other animals once the gods were done creating them.”

“All of the kids had nightmares before they died,” Bobbie said in sudden recognition. “A baku eats nightmares.” They were so fucked.

“But if the nightmares are gone then what’s the problem?” Dean asked. In theory, he was right, but that’s what made a baku so dangerous.

When Bobbie fell back into the bed in exasperation, Sam explained the issue. “A baku has to be called for the purpose of eating a nightmare, but the problem is that if it’s still hungry it can start to eat dreams too.”

Dean sighed, making the connection. “So if it eats dreams then they lose all hope which leads them to suicide.”

“Yes.”

“We’re so fucked,” Dean replied.

Understatement.

-

Since a baku didn’t show up unless there were nightmares in store, there was no way for them to find it unless there was another child, or just person in general, nearby that was being tormented by it. 

“We have to find out if there’s a kid nearby that’s being affected by it,” Sam said.

As they piled into the Impala, Bobbie asked. “Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Her little brother asked.

“It doesn’t matter if another kid is being tormented right now, what matters is that we catch it and we can do that by calling it.”

Dean’s eyes darkened. “No. No, no, no. You wanna call it to us?”

“Less than life itself,” she replied, “But what other choice do we have?”

“Dean’s right,” Sam replied. “There’s no way. If another kid is being tormented right now then we can find it through them.”

“How?” She exclaimed exasperatedly. “It shows itself in nightmares and dreams. It’s not a physical being.”

The hesitancy that hung in the car was stifling and uncomfortable to say the least, but they knew she was right. “What if there is another kid though?” Sam asked. “What if it’s eaten another nightmare and is already feeding on the dreams?”

“Then we have to hope that it hasn’t eaten too many of them,” she replied. “Maybe, if there’s another kid being tormented, and most of their dreams are still in tact, then if we can find a way to kill it, the kid will be okay.” 

“There’s way too much if in there,” Dean said. “But…” He, too, didn’t see what other way there was to handle this. “Alright, how do we go about this? We need to call Bobby.”

His namesake got on the phone, calling his actual house line. “Bobby, it’s B. I have a question for you.”  
“Shoot, sweetheart.” 

“We think we found out what’s happening around here,” she said slowly, hesitating. Once she said what it was, she knew the answer that would follow. “It’s a baku.”

“Balls.”

“Yea. B, Rufus and I came across one of those before and we turned tail and ran. There’s no shame not dealing with something that you don’t understand.”

There it was.

“Bobby, this thing has already deviated from its supposed path three times already. It’s called for nightmares and taken the hopes and dreams too. From three kids under the age of 10. What if it already has another? Are we just supposed to let kids keep dying?”

The problem with this thing is that it wasn’t corporeal – they couldn’t grab onto it. They couldn’t just knife it or shoot it. And because they knew so little about it, and about the circumstances leading up to the three kids’ deaths, there was no way to know how it was called. 

On the other end of the line, Bobby hesitated and Dean chimed in. “We’re not turning from this Bobby. If another kid even knows how to call it, then that’s all it’ll take. We need to take it out.” 

“How?” Sam asked at the same time Bobby did on his end. Bobby was livid that they were even entertaining the idea, but John had taught them in a way that meant they’d never back down – for better or for worse – and he knew as much.

“B, I’d be making a guess, an educated one, but still a guess about how to beat this thing,” he said softly. He paced around his kitchen, phone in hand, trying to decide whether he was going to stay here and help them or meet them out there. “Give me a little bit, I need to figure out the best way to go about this.”

Bobbie said goodbye and hung up, placing the phone back in her jacket pocket. Seconds later, they heard buzzing again, but it wasn’t her phone.

“This is Agent Vanir,” Dean answered. “O-okay, thanks for letting me know. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“What was that?” Sam asked.

“That was Chief Goldstein. He said a mother named Jenna Nostrand came in saying that her son is acting the same way the other three kids did before they died, and she wanted to know if they’d made any progress.” The locals were looking into things tentatively, but they truly had nothing to go on – even less than they did. “He told her that the FBI was looking into the case and said he’d send us over.”

Whether or not she knew it, Jenna Nostrand’s son was being attacked each and every night. They could only pray it wasn’t too late.

\- 

After going back into the motel room to get changed into some more professional looking clothes, they made their way over to the address that Goldstein had texted to them.

A woman, presumably Jenna, was waiting on the porch when they arrived, introducing herself before they had the chance to do it themselves. “Hello, Mrs. Nostrand,” Sam began. “We’re Agents Laird, Vanir and Acer. The chief told us you contacted him?”

“Yes,” she replied, her eyes downcast. “I know about the other two boys, and the girl who died, and my Thomas is acting the same way. I’m afraid the same thing that got them is going to get him too.”

Bobbie inhaled slightly. The ‘thing that got him’ and ‘get him too.’ She glanced to the side and saw that Dean and Sam had caught the slip of the tongue too. “Mrs. Nostrand, do you know what’s happening to your son?”

Finally, she made eye contact, looking ashamed as she tried to convince them that they wouldn’t understand. “Try us,” Bobbie replied. “Maybe we can help.”

She told them the story of her childhood, of the nightmare she toiled in and how she found out through research at the library that you could call something to take the nightmares away. Her own mother told her it was true and so she called it. The next night, Jenna didn’t have the nightmare and she hadn’t had it since. “I called it when my son started having nightmares.”

They let the silence hang for a moment, all three of them processing exactly what would lead a mother to call on something so dangerous. However, she took their silence for disbelief. “See, I told you that you wouldn’t understand.”

“We do Mrs. Nostrand,” Sam whispered.

She and Sam held their gaze for a moment before she questioned them. “You’re not FBI…are you?”

“No,” Dean said, “But-“

“Can you help my son?” She asked desperately.

Possibly. They might be able to help him. If Bobby could come up with a way to defeat it, and that was a big if. “We can try,” Bobbie said.

Jenna glanced over her shoulder and toward the street, imagining just weeks earlier when her son was playing with his friends there. “Then I don’t care who you are, just please…help him…I’m afraid it might be too late.”

\---

Part 4

“Do you realize how many favors I had to call in to make this deal happen?” Bobby asked. He’d called all over the place asking people that owed him where Bobbie, Dean and Sam could pick up some African Dream Root. It was the only thing he knew of that would allow them to enter the dream of another. “Three, B. I had to call in three favors to get you this stuff, so you better make it work.” He sucked at veiling threats – the shakiness in his voice, the nervousness about the kids he loved going up against something even he and John had never defeated, was more than evident. The Winchesters did hate to make Bobby worry, but they also never stopped, even in the face of something they didn’t truly understand. 

“We will Bobby.” 

Dean knocked on the door of the warehouse where they were meeting the hunter that was able to get her hands on something so rare. Clara Ogden was fairly well known for hunting alone and taking on small jobs to benefit the little guy while obtaining rare supernatural items to benefit hunters as a whole. As a small redhead, she was consistently underestimated – wrongly so. She was not one to be trifled with. “Knock SOS, right?”

Bobby grunted in response. He was less than thrilled with this whole situation and on top of that he was more than two days away by car so even if something happened, he couldn’t do anything quickly.

With three quick knocks, three drawn out ones and another three quick ones, the hunter opened the door. “You must be the Winchesters,” she crooned, her red hair curtaining her face as she peered out of the warehouse to make sure they hadn’t been followed. “This is some heavy stuff you’re looking for. Can I ask what it’s for?”

Bobbie shook her head not wanting to give anyone information that wasn’t necessary, but Dean was always a bit boastful. “A Baku. We need to get inside someone’s head.” Actually, they still hadn’t decided who was going to be the one volunteering for that wonderful task yet. “So what did Bobby have to give you for you to hand this over?” The whole credit card scam thing didn’t allow for any money to be offered for this.

“He made me a promise, that he, and you all, would owe me a favor. You’re good at what you do and I always collect, so keep your ears open for that.” Undoubtedly another life or death situation would be plopped onto their proverbial doorstep. Or maybe just a random werewolf or spirit. Hopefully the latter, probably the former.

They’d followed her into the warehouse she operated out of, which felt strangely homey despite the fact that it was an old, concrete building. There were pictures here and there, little knick-knacks and things that made it pretty obvious she lived out of this place too. Sam found himself thinking back to his dorm room, while Bobbie remembered the few short months of her life where she had something like this. In the corner of the room was a locked box that was shackled to the floor. “Keep your eyes somewhere else. I’m not about to let you see the combo to this bad boy. Too much valuable crap in here.”

The siblings huffed and turned around so Clara could get what they needed. When she gave them the okay, they turned back around. She was carrying a small palm full of what looked like twigs. “This is African Dream Root?” Bobbie asked. She had seen it before; it just didn’t look like anything special.

“This is it,” she laughed. “You need to make a tea with it. Three quarters of an inch of one of these twigs, tablespoon each of ground ginger and cinnamon. One teaspoon of honey and one uncontaminated piece of the dreamer’s DNA. It can be hair, saliva, snot, whatever you want.”

“Who wants snot?” Sam asked, putting his fist up to his mouth as he tried not to gag. 

Clara stifled a snicker. “Well no one wants it, but I do know a hunter that had to use boogers once. He said he brushed his teeth five times a day for a week and took one of those juice cleanses trying to feel clean again.”

“I can imagine,” Dean said, shivering. 

“Remind me to shove a booger in your faces sometime,” Bobbie laughed, taking in the queasy looks on their faces. “Babies. That’s what makes you feel the need to clean? Just weeks ago I had that sleazeball grab my ass; that was cleanse worthy.”

Dean very seriously pointed at her. “You touch me with snot and I will not be responsible for what happens to you.”

“Baby.”

“Ass.”

Clara shoved the dream root in Sam’s hand and coaxed them out the door. Something about the way she followed them toward the door made Bobbie wonder if Clara was in the middle of a job of her own. “Okay, kids. Be on your way…and good luck with this. I don’t know anyone who’s killed a Baku before.”

As they walked out, past an old but nevertheless comfy looking couch, they all had to suppress to urge to just stay there and relax. “Neither do we.”

-

With the dream root in hand and a quick stop at the local convenience store to grab the other mundane items they’d need, the three hunters got back into the car and started heading to their destination. Apparently, they had different destinations in mind.

“Where are you going?” Bobbie asked.

“Back to the Nostrand’s place,” Dean replied slowly.

“We can’t go there.”

Sam spoke up from the backseat. “What do you mean? That’s where the Baku is. In Thomas’s head.”

“Yea, exactly,” Bobbie replied. “Jenna never told her husband what she did and her son doesn’t know either. What? We go in and tell the little boy, ‘hey, the reason you’re feeling like shit is because your mom called out to an ancient Japanese dream eater and now it’s eating your brain from the inside out?’ We need to be near the dreamer for this to work, so I think we might be out of luck on that front.”

Sighing, Sam’s head fell back into the seat. “So you’re saying that one of us needs to call this thing.”

“Yea, that’s what I’m saying.” It was less than ideal, but she really didn’t see another way to go about this. She wasn’t about to let another child die at their own hands if there was anything they might be able to do to stop it.

“No,” Dean interjected. “No freakin way.” Despite his protestations, he turned the wheel of the car back toward their motel. “If it has to be one of us I’m going in.”

Not over Bobbie’s dead body. “No way. I am,” she said, turning to the back seat to cut Sam off. Dean was waving wildly trying to protest, but she wasn’t about to let it go. “I’m not discussing this. When we get back I’ll call it and you two get in my head.”

“What if it’s hungry and starts eating what little hope you have left?” Dean exploded out of nowhere. Ever since Bobbie had mentioned that she could easily eat the butt of a gun, Dean found himself waking up randomly in the middle of the night to make sure she was still breathing. With John being the absentee father he was, Bobbie was all he had in terms of someone to look up to; losing her would kill him.

Then maybe she could sleep? God, that was morbid. She needed help. Too bad all they could afford was booze. “That’s a chance we have to take and I’m not willing to leave you two open to that.”

“And what if we’re not willing to let it be you?” Sam asked.

“If we live through this, you can spot me one ‘throwing-yourself-in-the-line-of-fire’ deal a piece, okay?”

Neither was okay with it, by any means, but they had no time to waste – a little boy’s hopes and dreams were hanging in limbo.

-

Back inside their dank motel room, Sam readied the tea and walked toward the computer, trying to be nonchalant about his intent. Bobbie could tell he was looking for how to call the Baku so he could do it himself, but before he could, Bobbie plucked out two strands of hair from her head, placed them into the two teacups and called out. “Baku-san, come eat me dream. Baku-san, come eat my dream. Baku-san, come eat my dream.”

Sam muttered under his breath. “Dammit.”

“What? You didn’t think I could tell one of you asshats was going to try and go behind my back?”

Dean wasn’t thrilled with Sam either. If anyone was going to do this, he wanted it to be him. “What if the call only works when kids use it?”

“Then we’re fucked,” she replied, pulling off her boots and flopping down onto the bed. “We have to hope it’ll answer my call. Now, if you boys don’t mind, I’m going to get some shut eye.”

She was out in less than five minutes, leaving Sam and Dean to drink the tea infused with dream root and hope for the best. “We have to kill this thing, Sam. Whatever it takes.” He swallowed hard as he looked down at her sleeping, almost peaceful. “We can’t lose her. Not like this.” None of them expected a long or happy life, but if they were going to die young it was going to be in the heat of battle, not at their own hands.

“Not in any way,” Sam said softly. “Not ever. Let’s do this.”

-

The tea must’ve put them to sleep instantly because the next thing they knew, Sam and Dean were standing in the middle of stark blackness, more alert and ‘awake’ then they’d been in a long damn time. “Okay, so we’re in?” Sam asked aloud as he patted at his coat. “Why is it dark?”

“She’s not dreaming yet,” he said quietly. To be honest, he wasn’t sure how any of this was working, so he felt the need to keep his voice down so they wouldn’t wake her. 

In the distance, a hint of light emerged. The boys took a few steps forward and suddenly found themselves staring into the window of a wooden cabin amidst a forest of changing autumn leaves. Bobbie sat inside with a cup of coffee in her hand and was dressed in nothing but a flannel shirt. “Who’s that?” Sam asked when another woman emerged. Something about her was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

Dean felt heated tears sting at the corners of his eyes. “That’s Zoe Worley,” he replied. He’d met her only once, but from what Bobbie had told him, she was one of the best experiences of her life – a peak into the normal. It was one of the few times in his life that even he questioned his father bringing them up as hunters. She’d been so close to happiness. “Bobbie’s one and only ex. The only person she’s ever cared about outside the family.”

“I met her?” Sam asked.

“Once.”

“What happened to them?”

As the scene played out before them, Bobbie and Zoe just sitting in front of the fire and talking to each other, Dean told Sam about what happened. Bobbie never spoke about it. The only reason Dean knew anything was because he’d been there. “Zoe got taken by a nest of vamps. It was when Bobbie was working with Dad by herself and you and I were in school. Dad asked me to come and help, so the three of us took out the nest and saved her, but she broke things off with Bobbie and told her never to contact her again.”

Sam eyes darted from the window. He’d been so close to having what lay before him with Jessica, but the hunter’s life took no prisoners. All of them had deluded themselves at one point or another into thinking they could break away. “I imagine Jess would’ve said the same thing.”

Before Dean could say anything, the scene before them changed from one that was warm and hopeful to one that felt cold despite the fact that they were inside the Impala – the closest thing to a home they had.

Their gossamer selves sat crammed in the back, watching as the fight played out before them. “Would the two of you stop?” Bobbie screamed.

But they were ignoring her. “He’s not doing this!” Dean screamed. “It’s not happening!”

“You’re not Dad. You don’t get to tell me what I do and don’t get to do.”

What was this even in reference to? What were they fighting about? The two dream-walkers exchanged a glance in hopes that the other might be able to shed some light on what they were fighting about, but neither knew. 

“It’s too dangerous!” Dean yelled again. “You could die.”

“And so could you!” Sam bellowed. “It’s just that you have so little regard for your life that you don’t care. Neither of you. You’re so done with this that if you die, then fuck it, whatever, but that leaves me here without you, so no. I’m doing this!”

As they continued to fight, the brothers that had been observing couldn’t help but notice how accurately Bobbie had pegged them. Dean was done; like Bobbie he’d been put through too much and just wanted it to stop. Sam didn’t want to be alone, especially knowing that he failed his brother and sister. He already carried enough guilt about the night their mother died. 

Just as Bobbie was about to open her mouth again, a pair of headlights shone into the Impala. An 18-wheeler was barreling toward them and Dean jerked the car to the right, hoping to get out of the way, but a metallic clang alerted them that they’d been clipped. As the Impala spun around, the three unaware siblings screamed, trying to steady themselves as the car slammed into the side of the weakened concrete bridge and went over the edge into the icy cold water below.

“Where the hell is this thing?” Sam asked. The Baku was supposed to be here, taking away the nightmare, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Dean looked around frantically, praying it would show up sooner rather than later and fearing the worst. “Maybe it didn’t work.”

\---

Part 5

In the split second the car hit the water, dream-walker Dean felt the air knocked out his lungs. He’d been hit by wendigos, werewolves, vampires, you name it, but nothing could be worse than this; seeing the two people he loved most in this world so afraid – it tore him apart inside. Because this wasn’t just some supernatural bullshit that they could make go away with the right lore or weapon, this was completely in the universe’s hands and the universe had never been kind to them. “I thought we weren’t supposed to feel anything because we’re in a dream.”

“Where did you get that?” Sam asked, heartbeat racing as water started to seep into the vehicle. “You watch too many cartoons. We have to think fast. How do we get out of here?”

Reaching down, Dean grabbed a crowbar and handed it to Sam so he could smash the window out. The icy water knocked the wind out of both of them – the pain like a thousand needles at once. “What are you doing?” Dean cried. “Go!”

“I can’t yet,” he said shivering. “If we go now, the force of the water pouring in will pull us back into the car. The water has to level out first.” 

“So you mean we have to freeze our asses off?”

Basically yes. The car filled up inch by inch, making their clothes cling to their skin, impeding their ability to breathe. Shallow breaths only exacerbating the fear. Sam and Dean watched Bobbie’s dream play out before them, panic setting in for all of them with each gush of water. 

The car was almost halfway full. Before their eyes, Bobbie slipped out with the same crowbar Sam had used before in her own hand. She maneuvered toward the back window where the little brother in her dream sat reaching out toward her. With every ounce of strength she had, she managed to break the window and passed the crowbar to Dean who broke his own.

While it all played out, Dean and Sam glanced around for the Baku and saw nothing. If it was going to show up, it needed to show up soon. From what she’d told them, the dream was nearly over. What if it hadn’t worked?

As a vice grip began to form around their lungs, both Sam and Dean sped to the top of the water to catch their breath before heading back down. “We have to get back down there,” Dean sputtered. “We need to help her.”

“We can’t help her in the dream. It’s her dream. We have to find this thing.”

“Dammit!” Dean’s teeth began to chatter against the cold and frustration.

They both dipped back down under the water and out of the corner of Sam’s eye, he saw the chimera-looking creature swimming toward them. He torpedoed toward it as fast as he could with Dean right behind him. 

When they’d fallen asleep, both of them made sure to have various weapons on them, hoping that whatever was on their person would be at their disposal once they arrived. Thankfully, they’d been right. 

With knives in hand, they closed in on it, leaving the image of Bobbie hauling Sam’s body out of the water behind them. As they powered through the nerve-numbing pain of the water, the stinging sensation made their movements heavy, like they were swimming with concrete blocks. Sam readied his knife and went at the monster’s throat, but being underwater didn’t allow for the force necessary to do any real damage. It swatted Sam away like a fly and bounded for the shore, passing Dean in just a few quick strokes of its powerful legs.

When Dean found his bearings again, he spotted the Baku speeding toward the bank of the river. Beyond it, Bobbie swam upward to break through the water with Dean’s lifeless body at her side.

The brothers followed the Baku out of the water and onto the grass, shivering as the cold air hit their skin. “I thought she said we died in the water?” Sam said, teeth chattering. The Baku had already bolted away, probably to return in a matter of moments. One had to wonder whether or not a Baku enjoyed watching the nightmares play out before they took them away. Not putting Bobbie out of her misery seemed particularly sadistic.

Dean stated the obvious, wondering why he didn’t call it earlier himself. “She lied. It’s what I’d do if I wanted people to drop it.”

“Sam!? Dean!?” Bobbie screamed, her heart palpitating wildly as she smacked at their faces, trying anything and everything to get them to wake up. “Sammy wake up,” she cried. They could see the steam from heated tears coming from her face as she bent down to give Sam mouth to mouth. 

Over and over again, she turned between the two of them and tried to bring the air back into their lungs, but nothing was working. She’d gotten them out of the water, the air around them crystallizing the dripping water and anchoring her brothers to the ground, each lost degree pulling them further and further away from her. She thought she’d saved them and still lost them. That’s why she hadn’t told them about this part. Even in her dreams, hope was torturous and elusive.

During the few minutes they’d been underwater, someone called 911, red and blue sirens catching the boys’ gossamer forms and highlighting the Baku once again as it was hiding amongst the trees. 

“It’s there.” Dean grabbed Sam’s shoulder and motioned toward the forest. As they ran toward it, they were barreled over by it again, their heads knocking into tree trunks before they could find their footing. With his head throbbing, Sam followed the sound of Bobbie’s screams to find the monster.

“Your brothers are gone, Miss,” he heard the EMT tell his sister. “It’s over.”

“No!” She cried, her voice hoarse from the cold, rasping screams sending shockwaves of Sam’s spine. “No! They can’t be. They’re all I have!” 

She tried to break free from the arms of another EMT, but he held her tight, telling her over and over again that she couldn’t do anything to help them. “Please, Miss. Let them do their job.”

“They can’t be dead!” She screeched, collapsing into the ground before crying out. The sheer intensity of her cries rolled through everyone in the surrounding area, including the dream-walking brothers, so much so that it almost froze them in place.

Finally, it seemed as if the Baku was here to stay, inching closer and closer toward the horrific scene before them. Rushing forward, Dean readied his knife, jamming it into the monster’s side. As it turned around, it growled at him, almost overshadowing the voice that Bobbie had spoken of. “You’ve failed me.”

Bobbie looked toward the sky where the voice seemed to come from and cried. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Her body shook with the pain of each breath and doubled over, vomiting all over the ground in front of her. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you doing?” Sam cried. “Kill it.”

“But what if it can help her?” Dean asked, torn between killing it now or waiting it out. “She deserves to be free of this.”

“We can’t risk that thing disappearing once it does. We have to kill it now!” Despite the pain this vision brought her, she’d want them to kill the monster while they had the chance.

Sam rushed forward and stabbed the dream-eater in the throat. Following suit, Dean ripped his own knife from the Baku’s side and struck the other side of its muscular neck just before it collapsed to the ground with a hefty thud.

“You’ve failed me, Bobbie.”

“You’ve failed me.”

“No!” Bobbie sat up in bed, tears flowing down her cheeks as Sam and Dean snapped awake at her sides and tried their best to comfort her.

Turning toward Sam, she pressed her shaking palm to his cheek, feeling the softness of his baby face and letting it anchor her to reality. She was awake. They were alive. She wasn’t there. That wasn’t real. 

Dean grasped her hand and squeezed it. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

She stared forward toward the blank TV, her voice flat. “Did you kill it?”

“Yes,” Sam whispered. “It’s gone. We need to go check on Thomas.”

Not now. She couldn’t right now. Eyes bloodshot and wide open, the nightmare still played out even though she was awake. She knew where she was and that it wasn’t real, but it still haunted her all the same. “It’s the middle of the night,” she said, pointing toward the clock, which read 12:30 AM without glancing at either of them. “We won’t know if it worked until morning when he wakes up.”

Dean collapsed back into the bed. “So we’ll check in tomorrow morning before the kids leaves for school.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sam replied.

Bobbie slipped her boots back on and strode across the room to grab her jacket much to her brothers’ dismay. “I need to get out. I need some air.”

“Do you want-?”

“No,” she said, cutting Dean off. He meant well, but she couldn’t. “No, it’s okay. I just…I really need to be alone right now.”

Before either of them could say anything, she closed the door behind her and made her way down the block where she’d seen a bar. Her brothers had gotten an up close and personal look at the demons that plagued her. They’d seen themselves die because of her. They might have killed this thing, but they didn’t even know that for sure. If it did work, it was a big fat load of dumb luck. 

“Is she going to be okay?” Dean asked.

Sam didn’t want to think about what would happen if she wasn’t. “She has to be. We have to talk to her about what happened.”

“I know,” Dean said with his head in his hands. He looked toward the door forlorn, racking his brain for anything that could help her, but there was nothing – nothing but time. Time could help or it could atrophy her heart and eat away at her until there was nothing left. “What do we do now?”

Sam pulled off his shirt and slipped onto the couch, wanting to leave a bed open in case Bobbie did decide to come back tonight. “Sleep. Bobbie will probably need us to do the talking in the morning.” He knew what she’d be doing; she handled pain like Dean did.

-

Though it wasn’t that cold out, Bobbie clutched her leather jacket to her chest, attempting to keep in the warmth she’d managed to hold on to. As she stepped into the bar, she made eye contact with the bartender, holding up three fingers. “Bourbon. Your cheapest.”

A few other people were at the bar – a couple of frat boy looking guys that Bobbie could tell were going to try and make a move, the bartender, a lonely-looking blonde and a couple that seemed to be enjoying some time away from young and exhausting children. 

“Bad night?” The bartender asked, setting the light auburn liquid in front of her. Bobbie downed it in two large gulps and asked for another before replying.

“The worst.”

Alcohol slipped through her system, warming her, numbing her in just the way she needed. After the second glass, she switched to beer, knowing she’d need to be somewhat coherent in the morning to see the Nostrand family. She only allowed herself that split second to think about the job. She wanted numbness. She wanted to forget. That’s why she was here.

Nearly 30 minutes passed before she asked for another beer, making eye contact with the lonely blonde she’d seen earlier. “You need to forget too?”

“Yea,” Bobbie replied somberly. “Majorly.”

She didn’t want to talk about it and the other woman, who introduced herself as Lila, could tell, choosing to ask her about random tv shows and movies instead. One conversation led to another and when Lila asked if Bobbie wanted to come home with her, she found herself saying yes despite her better judgment. Anything to numb the pain for another night.

-

The following morning, Dean and Sam woke up to see Bobbie just strolling in with coffees in hand. “You just get back?” Sam asked, taking the welcome drink from his sister. 

She nodded in response and guzzled down a few sips of the burning liquid to hopefully sober herself up a bit. 

“Where were you?” Dean asked.

“You’re not my mother, Dean.”

“But I’m your brother and I’m worried. I know how you get.”

“Exactly,” she snapped. “I get how you get. Where do you think I went? I went to the bar down the street, got drunk, got picked up and got laid. That enough for you?”

Dean shuddered slightly at her tone and let it go. “Yea…yea. Just…” He was about to tell her he was here, if she needed a shoulder to lean on, but she shot him a death glare through tired eyes so he stopped. 

“You have to talk about this,” Sam said. It needed to be said and he knew she was less likely to yell at him than Dean. 

“Not now.” Her curt tone said the conversation was over. “Let’s go to the Nostrand house and check in with Jenna.”

The three of them slipped in the confines of the Impala and found themselves at Jenna’s doorstep within about 10 minutes. She was already out on the porch watching Thomas kick a ball with his dad before the bus came to pick him up for school. Bobbie allowed a hint of a smile onto her face; the boy seemed happy. 

“How’s he doing?” Dean asked.

Tears sprang to her eyes. “It was like a complete 180,” she said, waving to her son. “He got up by himself and started talking about career day next week. Then he asked Gavin to play before school.” She hesitated a moment, a modicum of doubt holding her back. “It’s gone?”

“Yes,” Sam replied, holding out a card with their numbers written on it. “We killed it, but we needed to see Thomas to know that it actually worked. It looks like it did.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her gaze lingering on Bobbie. “I’ll never be able to repay you.

It was the job. Moments like these were all that kept them going. “If you need us, don’t be afraid to call, okay?” Bobbie asked, resting her hand on Jenna’s for a second. 

“No offense, but I hope I don’t need to.”

“That’s always the goal,” she said, the forced smile fading away quickly.

With their goodbyes exchanged, they got back into the car to start driving to who knows where. Bobbie had no desire to talk to anyone, but their uncle needed to know they were okay. “Hey B,” he said as he answered the phone, his gravely voice taking some of the edge off. “Did you get it? Are you all okay?”

“We got it.”


	5. Faith

Part 1

Another greasy, backwoods, podunk hick stinking of beer and motor oil thinking he was gonna get into her pants. 

Little did he know.

She was exhausted by it, but unfortunately it came with her assignment and for him she would deal with an infinite amount of these idiots.

Meg glanced in the rearview mirror, a smirk playing across her lips when he asked her where she wanted to go. It was all fun and games screwing around with one dumbass after another, but she did have a job to do and all her plans had been derailed after they left. He would want an update.

“Why don’t you pull over?” She crooned. The down-home country twang got them every time. It was too simple. Of course he would pull over; this idiot thought what they all did. ‘A pretty little blonde asking me to pull to the side of the road - I’ve hit the lottery!’ 

She tried to suppress a gag when she saw exactly how excited this moron was at the prospect of a little ass, but she’d do what needed to be done. 

On this almost moonless night, he pulled the rickety van into a clearing with more than a few trees. He could have gone further up the road, but he underestimated the woman in the passenger seat, thinking if she decided not to go through with it, he’d have her in a corner. She banked on the stupidity of others.

The scraggly-haired redneck glanced in her direction expectantly, mind buzzing with possibilities that would never come. She wanted to laugh. She could just cut to the chase, but toying with him was so much fun. The silver goblet slipped effortlessly out of her bag, intriguing the man next to her. “I need to make a call,” she said sweetly. 

A hint of confusion struck him before he offered her his cellphone. How cute. 

Slipping her left hand into the pocket of her leather jacket and molding her palm to the knife’s hilt, she spoke with ice in her veins. “It’s not that kind of call.”

Before he knew what hit him, she jabbed the knife into the side of his throat, delighting in the gurgling sound that came from him. She’d revel in it more if she had the time, but she needed answers and per his orders had been keeping herself under the radar – very little fun, but necessary. Tipping the goblet toward the steady stream of blood, the scent of copper filling her nose, she gathered it and watched until it pooled into the basin.

With two fingers, she pushed the dying man in the direction of the driver’s side window and smirked before dipping the same two fingers into the pool of blood, stirring as she spoke – to him. 

The blood reached out, its power eminent. He could hear her. “Why did I have to let them go?” She asked. She trusted him. Truly, she did, but her abilities were wasted. “I could have taken them, both of them.”

As the indistinct voice emerged from the goblet, she relaxed into her role. They were needed for a larger purpose and she would just have to trust that fact for now. “Yes, I trust you,” she whispered. “I trust you father.”

-

Probably a good thing they came back. “You were toast,” Bobbie laughed. Some might balk at the idea of being chased around an orchard by a killer scarecrow for a pagan sacrifice, but alas, it was just another day in their lives. 

“Seriously, you should be kissing our asses.” Sam said with a smile, pointing between himself and Bobbie as they all piled into the Impala again. 

Dean claimed he had a plan all along; he would’ve been fine. But he couldn’t fool them. He and that girl had been mere moments from being on the wrong end of the scarecrow’s blade. Thankfully, the freaks that had been orchestrating the sacrifices for years were the ones to bite it this time. “What made you decide to come back?” 

Bobbie came back because Sam decided to return. After her brothers ended up fighting in the car and walking away from each other despite her protestations, she decided to go with Sam. He wanted to look for John, a mix of worry and anger flowing through every muscle of his body. Dean wanted to follow John’s orders – for them to stop looking for him and do their jobs.

Honestly, Bobbie didn’t care either way. She knew there was work to be done, but she also wanted to find John if for no other reason than to punch him in the throat. After all the shit he’d been putting them through lately, she figured she was entitled to that much. But Sam had been the reason she’d left Dean. As his big sister, she was supposed to protect him – love him – that was her job, but when Jessica died she knew she’d failed, so instead of staying with Dean who could in all likelihood handle a job or two on his own (apparently she’d been wrong about that too, cue more guilt) she went after Sam and found him at the bus station on the tail end of a conversation with a pretty blonde.

“Well, you weren’t picking up your phone and we got worried about you,” he replied. “Good thing too. Otherwise you’d be a dead man.”

“No way, man. I had a plan. I was golden.” Bobbie rolled her eyes and smiled as Baby purred and began growling down the road. 

“And I just figured that we know dad’s alive and finding him could wait another day. Something Meg said, even though I don’t think she meant it that way.” Sam didn’t want to admit how much he’d understood her, the desire to get away from family – forge another path, but when it all came down to it, no matter how much of a pain in the ass he found his brother and sister, they were all each other had. 

Dean turned around, hand resting on Baby’s wheel. “Meg? You met a girl and you came back? Was she pretty?”

“Shut up,” Sam quipped. “It’s only been six months. Not ready for that yet.”

Bobbie’s lip twitched as she looked out the window. Jessica’s death was still so raw for him and she couldn’t do anything to help him. “I thought she was,” Bobbie said, forcing a little too much levity into her voice. “Like a southern belle with a rebel streak, but it didn’t look like she had anyone, not like us.”

Sam leaned back in the front passenger side seat and closed his eyes. “Yea, we can wait another day for Bobbie to punch dad in the face. We’ll find him together.”

“You wanna punch dad in the face?” Dean asked incredulously.

“You don’t?”

-

A few days passed before they got a hint of anything on the radar, but the second a Rawhead showed up (a humanoid with decaying skin that lurks in basements and preys on children, seriously you can’t make this shit up) Bobbie, Dean and Sam formulated a plan to take it out. 

Considering they tended to crumble under electrocution, the plan was fairly simple - take stun guns and shoot the bastard. But the best laid plains of mice and men often go awry so the saying goes. 

The moment the Impala parked on cool, damp grass, the three of them jumped out of the car and grabbed their stun guns from the trunk. “Okay,” Dean said quietly as they snuck up the side of the rickety, wood-eaten house, “Once we get down there, we separate, corner it and finish this thing off so we can go back to the room and get drunk. I want this thing extra friggin crispy.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Bobbie whispered into the chill of the night. 

Sam thought more along the lines of sleeping for another few days, but it didn’t matter. Whatever motivation they could find to make it through another job was about all they could really ask for.

Inside the home, they made their way down the stairs, careful not to draw any unwanted attention through clacking shoes and creaking floors. Easier said than done. When Bobbie’s boot pressed heavily into the weak wood, Sam shot her a glance, grimacing when she mouthed her ‘sorry.’ 

It took them forever to get to the bottom of the steps, but once Dean’s ratty shoes hit the concrete floor, they tiptoed in opposite directions to cover more ground. A chill ran up Bobbie’s spine. The never-ending silence paired with the dank, musty smell and the lack of light making her question every single move made around her. Was it Sam? Was it Dean? Was it something else entirely? 

From across the basement, the sound of some kind of opening doors focused her attention again. Practiced agility brought her back to her brothers in seconds. The children had been cowering in the cabinet. “It’s okay. We aren’t going to hurt you,” Dean whispered.

Bobbie reached out and ushered the children toward Sam. “This is my brother. He’s going to help you outside okay?” The frightened youngsters nodded, eyes searching everywhere, desperate to get out of their own personal hell without any cuts and bruises. “We’ve got this,” she said, looking up at Sam, whose worry was always apparent in furrowed brows. 

Close behind the children, Sam bounded up the steps and got knocked down when the Rawhead shot its hand out from between the dilapidated stairs and grabbed him by the ankle. “Sam!” Bobbie yelled.

Sam kicked his leg out of the monster’s grasp before following behind the children, leaving Dean and Bobbie to handle the barely human creature on their own. Instead of separating this time, they stood back-to-back, stun guns raised with fingers ready to pull at the triggers. “Where the hell did it go?” Bobbie whispered.

He didn’t have any clue, but before he could answer, the monster raced toward them from the sides, its inhuman speed taking them off guard and knocking Bobbie and Dean in different directions among the dust and debris. She could feel the air get knocked from her lungs as the force of the Rawhead’s push smashed her into the back wall. With her brain rattling around in her skull, she tried to refocus her vision and reach for the stun gun, but the otherworldly screeching of the monster and the sizzle of electricity brought her attention upward to where it was convulsing.

The ripples of shock ripped through the monster’s body and traveled down through the floor where it stood in a puddle of water. As the blur started to fade away, she saw Dean in the water too. “Dean!”

Not again.

She failed him again. 

The electricity rolled through him, snaps, crackles and pops making him sound more machine than human. 

Bobbie’s heart raced as she ran to his side, cradling Dean in her arms. “Dean! Dean, wake up!”

Part 2 

Her throat went raw as she screamed into her pillow, a sharp pain shooting through her foot when she kicked the door closed. He’d nearly died. Dean and Sam had nearly died because she’d failed. 

“You can’t leave them alone!” Her father had screamed.

“I was just trying to perfect my aim!”

“And look what happened!” He roared. 

In her attempt to get better at what she was apparently supposed to do for the rest of her life, she’d almost lost the two people she cared about most in the world – her two little brothers. 

She hadn’t been gone two hours. But in those two hours Dean managed to get out of the hotel room and run into the very werewolves that John had been hunting. He didn’t get bitten, but the claw marks across his small chest were bad enough. “Dean, I’m sorry!” She cried.

“Sorry isn’t enough!” Her father yelled. “What if he had died?”

“Dad, I-“

“I don’t want to hear it. You need to pay attention Bobbie. Life isn’t about you anymore. They need you.”

Sterile white floors and harsh fluorescent lights stung at the eyes of the youngest and oldest Winchesters as they approached the nurses’ desk. While the doctors treated Dean, they were supposed to make sure their insurance went through. It seemed so mundane; this was anything but. Fortunately, they had new solid identities so insurance wasn’t the issue. A little insurance fraud was the least of what either of them would do to make sure Dean came back to them. “Mister…Berkowitz,” the nurse said hesitantly, obviously having trouble with putting the name to the face. “We’ll call you as soon as we know anything.”

Sam thanked the nurse for her help and turned to see Bobbie sitting with her head in her hands, silent sobs shaking her body. “He’s gonna be okay,” he said softly. Other people might have been able to take that at face value, but Bobbie could hear the small tears in his voice. “He has to be.”

She wanted to believe – look on the bright side. At least he wasn’t dead yet. But every time she couldn’t get between the boys she loved and the next big danger, she felt the noose becoming tighter and tighter. If she could take on the world’s pain and be ripped limb from limb day after day to keep her brothers safe she would. 

When the doctor emerged a few minutes later, Bobbie’s head popped up from Sam’s shoulder, a single ray of hope driving her toward him. Sam followed close behind.

“How is he?”

“He’s okay for the moment, but-“

“But what?” Bobbie interjected. ‘But’ was a bad word. In their world, ‘but’ meant deep-seated hollowness, a black hole where a heart should be. “What’s wrong?”

The siblings fell into a vacant state as the doctor explained Dean’s situation. The electricity had triggered a massive heart attack, leaving it atrophied beyond repair. “We can make him comfortable, but I suspect he only has a couple of weeks to a month before his heart gives out.”

“No,” Sam whispered, fruitlessly appealing to the doctor. “There has to be something. There-“

“I’m sorry, but keeping him out of pain is all we can do.”

As the doctor gave his condolences and left without another word, Bobbie felt her knees start to shake – that hollowness eating away at her heart. 

No. These doctors had no idea of the possibilities out there. She and Sam would find a way to save Dean. They had to. If John wasn’t going to be the father they needed, then she would step, no matter how unfair it was.

Bobbie had always hated hospitals. Sterility smelled like death. When they walked into Dean’s room and pulled the curtain back, Bobbie slapped her hand over her mouth without thinking. The darkness under his eyes was far beyond the normal – not just tired, but sunken and withering. “Geez, both of you look like bigger shit than I do.”

“Doubtful.” Sam smiled to hide the pain. Something he did well. 

Despite all their pain, that never worked for Bobbie. She wore her heart on her sleeve. Always. She was an open book. 

“We’re gonna find something, Dean,” Bobbie assured him. There was no hint of doubt in her voice anymore and Sam noticed, giving her a supportive nod. No longer could she play the doubtful sister; she had to step into the role of protective mother. It was that or lose half her heart.

As he lay in the bed, practically glued to the crappy daytime television in front of him, he tried to play it all off. He was the tough guy. Nothing got to Dean Winchester. As a strong as a rock he was. But the thing people didn’t realize about him was just how scared and vulnerable he could be if you only knew the signs. Avoidance, quick to respond, eyes darting from the person he was supposed to be convincing of his machismo. Deep down he was petrified; she’d put money on it. “You have to accept reality.”

“And that is?” Sam’s voice rose with each word, denial begging Dean not to voice the dreaded reality they were supposed to face. 

“That I’m going to die.”

No. Bobbie would never allow it. “I’m the older one. I die first.”

An uncomfortable silence hung between them for a moment. “You both better take care of that car or I’ll haunt your asses.” 

When he chuckled, Bobbie snapped. “That’s not funny, asshat.”

“I’m being deadly serious.”

“Really?” Sam exclaimed.

Bobbie finally allowed herself to ease into their usual banter because if she didn’t she would sob until there was nothing left to cry and that would be worse on Dean. He’d always hated seeing her cry. “Alright, we’re gonna go,” she said.

Sam finished her thought. “But we’re gonna find something. Promise.”

He wasn’t convinced, but he forced a smile and sent them away. This was the game – one day something was going to take them out. He’d hoped to get a few more years of ganking monsters under his belt before he bit the bullet but such was life. His time had come.

-

Back in the room, Bobbie broke down. She couldn’t play protective mom all the time and though she wanted to stay positive for Sam’s sake, she couldn’t hold it back any longer.

Taken aback by her shattering cry, Sam wrapped her in his arms, his right hand cradling her head against his chest as she cried. “We’re going to find something, Bobbie. I swear. I won’t let anything happen to him.”

“That’s supposed to be my job.”

He kissed her forehead, a single tear falling from the corner of his eye and onto her matted brown hair. “We’re family. It’ll never be all on you.”

If only she could force herself to live by his words.

“Why don’t you go shower while I make some calls?”

“I can help. We need to move quickly.”

“I’ll be quick, but you can’t help us if you don’t take care of yourself. After everything that’s happened recently, the baku, Dad – you need to breathe.”

Bobbie sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her jacket, not caring how gross she looked. “I must really smell if you’re trying to push me to shower.”

“You don’t exactly smell pleasant,” He laughed.

It was the first genuine smile she’d had all day. “Bite me, Sammy.”

-

While Bobbie washed the days’ old grime off her tired muscles, Sam called every known associate of John’s, Bobby included, to try and figure out something that could help Dean. After convincing Bobby he was of better help where he was, he went down the list of names in John’s journal. He could feel his hope waning with each call – those he talked to leaving him with little to nothing to go on, but he plugged on with increased vigor when he heard Bobbie stifle another cry. 

Minutes later, she dried off and pulled on some comfortable clothes, emerging from the bathroom to see Sam deep in thought. “Anything?”

“Yea,” he replied. “I don’t think either of you are gonna wanna go for it, but it’s what I have.”

It didn’t matter. She’d do anything. “What is it?”

“A faith healer.”

She scoffed and spun around, flopping into the bed and mumbling into her pillow. “That’s what we have? A hokey religious nut that thinks they’ve been endowed with the power of God.”

Before Sam could reply, they heard a knock at the door and were surprised to find Dean, wobbly as all hell, leaning against the doorframe. “What the hell, man? What are you doing here?”

He slapped Sammy on the shoulder and laughed. “I checked myself out. Not about to stay in a hospital with nurses that aren’t even hot when I have precious little time left.”

Bobbie wanted to smack him, but he was already in pain, so she refrained. “Dumb! Dumb! You’re dumb! Why would you do that?”

“I just told you,” he said with that cheeky grin that could either endear someone to him or drive them up a wall.

Gritting her teeth, she threw her pillow at him. “Stop thinking with your dick for like two seconds!”

“Nah. Anything?”

“Uh, yea,” Sam said, eyeing his sister. He was about to withhold valuable information; she could tell. “A friend of Dad’s, Joshua, referred me to a specialist who can see us tomorrow afternoon.”

Dean was less that thrilled with the whole situation, figuring his brother and sister were both just in denial about his eventual downfall, but they wouldn’t let go, so he’d just go along for the ride and get in a little more time with his beloved Baby. “Alright, why don’t we sleep for a few hours then and get going early in the morning.”

It took less than ten minutes for the motel room to fill with the snores of hunters who’d been stretched beyond their limits.

-

At five the next morning, they dragged themselves groggily out of bed and into the car. Bobbie wanted nothing more than to sleep for another few years, but Dean was sick and Sam had pulled more than his fair share the night before, so she drove the car out of the motel parking lot while her brothers slept a little bit more. Their destination wasn’t all that far away so before she could fall asleep at the wheel they’d arrived. 

It wasn’t even a church. A tent stood in the middle of a field, surrounded by cars on either side with paths of grass and dirt leading toward it like the parting of the seas. The sign read ‘Reverend Roy LeGrange – Faith Healer.’ “Oh hell,” she groaned. She didn’t begrudge anyone with faith, so long as it wasn’t forced on her or used to undermine another, but she just couldn’t understand it herself – not with the life she’d led. This was such a waste, but it was all they had to go on at the moment. “We’re here.” She reached toward both of them and shook them awake.

“A faith healer?” Dean exclaimed, slipping out of the car and slamming the door shut. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie. I stretched the truth,” Sam said. Bobbie smiled to herself as she recalled the night before. Of course Dean was going to hate this. Sam on the other hand was hopeful. Maybe it was the fact that he was so young when it all happened that he didn’t have the memory to become jaded, but whatever it was, Dean and Bobbie didn’t have it.

“You said doctor.”

“I said specialist,” he said. “Dad’s friend assures he’s the real deal.”

As they approached the tent, a man protested with flyers in hand, screaming that LeGrange wasn’t all that he said he was, and while the elder Winchesters were inclined to believe him, they went inside for Sam’s sake. “Maybe it’s time for you to have a little faith.” Dean tried to humor him but he still rolled his eyes. “The good doesn’t exist with the bad and we’ve seen the bad, so how can you believe there isn’t some good out there with what we’ve seen?”

“Exactly,” Dean said, his hands fidgeting in his pockets. He wanted to curl his fingers around a pool cue or the neck of a good beer, not this. “Seen! We’ve seen what evil does to good people.”

Bobbie opened her mouth to speak but was caught off guard when another woman turned, faith dripping from every pore. “Maybe god works in mysterious ways?” Her smile was genuine, her faith undeterred by the skeptics around her. It was actually refreshing to see someone with such strong faith.

Dean scanned the young woman. His mind raced with dirty thoughts that, if God existed, he might not be a fan of. “Maybe he does,” he said assuredly. “I think he might’ve even turned me around on the subject.” As Bobbie walked past him and into the tent, she smacked the back of his head. What a hoe.

If he wasn’t already on the verge of death, she’d kill him.

Part 3

Inside the tent, she could see cameras everywhere – something that Dean and Sam caught onto immediately as well. “For a man of faith, he sure seems jaded,” Dean said as he cleared his throat and headed toward some seats at the back. Sam tugged on his arm, insisting they sit at the front. 

“Come on, man.”

A few minutes passed before a gray-haired, older man graced the stage, followed closely by a woman who was presumably his wife. “Hello everyone,” he started, his voice instantly taking on that preacher’s cadence. It all felt like such an act. Bobbie had to stifle a laugh. “We are surrounded by immorality. Bombarded by it on a daily basis, but have faith because God punishes the bad and rewards the good.” Bobbie had to zone out to keep herself from going insane. If what he said was true, then she’d be in a very different place right now. A chorus of ‘yeses’ and ‘amens’ floated through the congregation. “He’s chosen me to be his conduit and through me, he can reward those that keep the faith.” When he pulled his sunglasses off, they could see that LeGrange was actually blind. “I see into your hearts to know who to heal.”

“Or their wallets.” Dean couldn’t stop his mouth from opening. Bobbie couldn’t stop the laugh this time while also feeling a bit mortified. 

“What was that?”

“Oh nothing.”

“We have a skeptic.” Instead of being offended, LeGrange looked happy. Yet another opportunity for conversion. “What’s your name?”

Sam prodded at his brother even though Dean wanted to disappear into a corner. “Dean.”

“Come on up, Dean.”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his hands digging deeper into his pockets. “I think you should pick someone else.”

“Like I said, I didn’t pick you. God did.”

Sam and Bobbie convinced him to get up as the rest of the Reverend’s flock gave him words of encouragement. Their pleas to ‘keep the faith’ falling on deaf ears.

“Just do it for Sammy,” Bobbie whispered. With Dean shuffling uncomfortably in front, the preacher called on his people to raise their hands in prayer. It was astonishing to Bobbie to see so many with a faith she could only hope to possess; she had faith, but it wasn’t in some supernatural deity. She had faith in herself and her brothers – mostly her brothers.

In the silence, LeGrange placed his hand on Dean’s head. Bobbie prepared herself for the inevitable defeat, where Dean would come down from the stage just as sick as he was before, but his knees started to buckle and his eyes rolled into the back of his head before he fell to the ground.

At the touch of the Reverend’s hand, Dean felt an icy cold shock travel up his spine and then he fell to the floor, losing focus for what was probably a few seconds at most. Staring up at the preacher, beyond the faces of his brother and sister, stood a man. He was behind the preacher, his skin wrinkled, eyes glued to his own.

“Dean! Hey! We’ve got you.”

Sam slipped his left arm under Dean’s while Bobbie steadied him at the other side. He didn’t look any different, but his eyes told a different story – one that was scary and awe-inducing and dare he say miraculous all in one. Dean felt fine. Bobbie and Sam walked him toward the back of the tent as the Reverend, or should they say ‘God,’ picked another person from the flock to be healed. “Dean, talk to me,” Bobbie said. “How do you feel? What happened?”

“I…I don’t know,” he whispered, eyes still locked on the place on the stage where he’d seen the strange man just moments before. “But I feel fine – great. I-“

Glancing up, she tried to see what Dean focused on, but all she saw was the Reverend and his wife. Sam’s eyes scanned the room, searching for anything out of the normal that might explain what Dean had just gone through. Though he wanted to believe, the idea of accepting that a miracle just took place in front of them was something he wasn’t sure if he could truly accept. “We need to get you to a doctor to make sure you’re okay.”

“Yea…yea…that sounds good.”

Dean couldn’t vacate the tent fast enough, but for some reason he couldn’t explain, he couldn’t rip his gaze from it either.

-

A doctor’s visit had to be postponed until the following day for two reasons. One, they didn’t want to go to the same hospital and risk their false identities being blown and the nearest doctor could only take them the next day and two, Dean was feeling wonderful which meant going out for a game of pool, a drink and undoubtedly a “one-of-a-kind date,” as he liked to call it in front of Bobbie.

“How was your date?” She snickered the next morning.

Dean flashed her that cheeky smile again. She’d make fun of him for it, but that smile had faded for a few days, taken over by one far less cheery and far more defeated, so instead she reveled in seeing it again. 

After they all took showers and grabbed some decent food for a change, the Winchesters headed toward the doctor’s office and were able to walk right in. No one was there so early in the morning on a weekday. It took a ridiculous amount of tests and way more time than they wanted to be spending in a doctor’s office, but then the results came back. “Everything looks okay. As a matter of fact it doesn’t look like anything was ever wrong with your heart. I don’t know why it would be anyway. You’re young and healthy.” It was more a question than a statement, but the doctor seemed to be covering her bases. 

“Oh come on, you have to get people coming in with heart issues all the time,” Dean said as he buttoned up the rest of his shirt. 

“Of course, but not 25-year-old men. Mostly retirees. Though I did have a 25-year-old come into the morgue yesterday. Poor guy died of a heart attack.”

The siblings thanked the doctor for her time and waited until she left the room. “We have to check this out,” he finally said. 

“The other guy?” Bobbie asked.

Sam wanted to pretend Dean’s healing was miraculous and leave it at that. 

“Sam, when I was healed I felt wrong. It was cold. And more importantly, when I looked at the preacher, he wasn’t the only one standing there.”

“What do you mean?” Bobbie had seen the preacher and his wife. “His wife?”

“No. There was someone else there. A man. Old, wrinkled, definitely didn’t look like life had been kind to him. I think it was a spirit and it has to have something to do with what happened to me.”

Sam and Bobbie wanted it not to be true, both desperate to hold on to faith, but Dean insisted. “You’re both gonna have to trust me.”

-

If there was one thing between them all, it was trust. 

While Sam went to where the heart attack victim died, Bobbie and Dean decided to visit the Reverend. Once at the house, Dean hesitated. “You okay?” Bobbie asked.

“Yea, I’m just…I can’t believe it you know? And I have a bad feeling, but I don’t want to. I want-“

“To just believe,” she finished. 

When the door opened, the Reverend and his wife welcomed them in with open arms. Essentially, they were investigating a case, but nothing in the LeGrange home set off any supernatural alarms. “What can we help you with Dean?”

“Well, I was just wondering if I could ask you some questions about what happened?” The question didn’t come from a hunter but a man confronted by an experience he couldn’t comprehend.

Reverend LeGrange chuckled. This kind of thing happened all the time. Skeptics would come to him as a last resort and leave with a faith they didn’t understand. “I take it you’re feeling better.”

“Yea, I feel great. I’m just trying to make sense of what happened.” 

Bobbie wanted to believe in the miracle. Her brother sat at her side completely healed, feeling better than he had in days, but if he couldn’t shake a bad feeling, she knew to trust him. They’d been doing this long enough to trust their guts.

“A miracle happened,” his wife Sue Ann replied. “They happen around him all the time.” 

Something about her didn’t sit well with Bobbie, but maybe she was just jaded. “When did they start? The miracles?’

Reverend LaGrange told them about how he woke up blind one morning and found out he had cancer. He and Sue Ann prayed and prayed for his recovery and he fell into a coma only to come back days later cancer free. “It was after that that I realized I could heal people.” 

“And this is only the beginning.” Sue Ann smiled, sending a shiver up Bobbie’s spine. Just one time, she wanted the good thing to be a good thing – no ulterior motive, no supernatural entity – just good. But today wasn’t that day.

“Why me?” Dean asked. “What in my heart made you pick me?” His voice shook with uncertainty. Why was he worthy over anyone else? He just didn’t understand; he honestly wasn’t sure he ever could. Because he didn’t believe it himself and that made Bobbie’s heart ache.

Even though Sue Ann left the older sister with a bad feeling, her husband seemed genuine. “When I looked in your heart I saw a man that had a job to do – a purpose to fulfill – and you haven’t finished it yet.”

To anyone else that might be comforting. To be meant for a larger purpose was an honor, right? But for the Winchesters, the idea of fulfilling a bigger picture left her drowning in dread.

After bidding the Reverend and his wife goodbye, the two made their way out of the house, the serene calm of the homestead directly contrasting the uncertainty in Dean’s head. “The Reverend seems genuine.”

“Yea, but you’re right. There’s something up.”

“Sue Ann rubs you the wrong way, doesn’t she?” Dean asked. He hadn’t been paying attention to her, too preoccupied by picking the Reverend’s brain, but if he was genuine, they had no where else to turn their doubts but her.

Bobbie nodded as a car pulled up. Laila, the blonde woman from the other day had come with her mother to see if they could get a private meeting with the healer. Sue Ann stepped out and told them her husband was resting so he wouldn’t be seeing anyone else today.

“Please, Sue Ann!” Her mother pleaded. “He has to see us.”

“As soon as the Lord allows.” Smiling, she returned inside, leaving Laila’s mother bitter. 

Others would look at her and see untouchable faith. To Bobbie, Sue Ann was callous. If she knew what was wrong with Laila, to smile at the mother and daughter in the face of it? There was something wrong with her. 

“Why are you even still here?” Her mother spat at Dean. “You got what you wanted.”

Bobbie’s protective nature placed her in between her brother and the desperate mother. “Trying to make sense of it is all,” she replied.

Laila begged for her mother to stop, but she couldn’t. When you wanted to protect someone, when you loved someone, no one else mattered. Everyone else was in the way. “No, it’s not fair. We come every week. Go to every service. Roy keeps picking all these strangers over you. People that don’t even believe.”

“Laila, what’s wrong?” Dean asked, as the sinking feeling grew stronger.

She had an inoperable brain tumor. Six months to live. “I’m so sorry, Laila,” Bobbie whispered. 

“No, you’re not.”

“Mom! Stop.”

Bobbie’s eyes welled up. “Just because I’m thankful my brother’s okay doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry about your daughter. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Without another word, she stormed off and left Laila to give them a half-hearted smile. Dean always played like he could hide his feelings, but she saw right through him. 

Nothing would make it go away. She knew that much. But they had to get to the bottom of this so some of the weight could be lifted. Dean was healed – cured – but that didn’t mean guilt couldn’t kill him instead.

-

“He was healthy, ran all the time. Hell, he ate clean. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Sam had to admit it was weird - a healthy, young man randomly dying. “He was running when it happened?”

“Yea, freaking out too,” the man replied. He’d never seen something so out of the ordinary before. “He kept saying that something was coming after him.”

“Did he say what it was?”

“Thin air. There was nothing there.” Sam had a really bad feeling; Dean said he saw something but he and Bobbie hadn’t. The connections between the two were piling up.

Sam thanked him for his time and turned to leave, catching sight of the clock, which was frozen. “You know your clock is broken right?”

“Yea, happened yesterday. Can’t seem to fix it.”

Noting the time, Sam grimaced. There was something going on here. “4:17. Same time Marshall died?”

“How’d you know?”

-

On the way back to the motel room, Bobbie tried to talk to Dean, but he didn’t want to hear it. He’d never felt worthy and now a woman of faith, a woman far more worthy in his eyes, was dying while he got to live. It wasn’t fair. 

The second Dean opened the door he knew something was wrong. Defeated, he peeled off his coat and dropped it onto the table. “What did you find out?”

Sam sighed, not wanting to meet Dean’s gaze. The instant they looked at each other Dean would know he’d been right. “I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“Marshall Hall died at 4:17.”

He wanted to throw something, break something, anything. “The same time I was healed.”

Part 4

Feeling the bile rise in her throat, Bobbie turned away, combing her hands through her hair. Sam found six other people in the past year alone that had been cured by Reverend LaGrange. “Each time, someone else died at the exact same time of the same thing that he was healing.”

“So Marshall Hall died because of me?” Dean asked. “You shouldn’t have brought me here.”

Bobbie spun around to face him. “No. It wasn’t your fault. It’s whatever is out there doing this. You had nothing to do with it.”

“We didn’t know,” Sam said quietly.

“It’s not your fault either! It’s not the fault of any of us!”

“He probably would’ve died anyway,” Sam said. It didn’t make Dean feel any better. “And someone else would’ve been healed instead of you.”

“How is he doing it?” For the life of her, Bobbie couldn’t figure out how the Reverend was healing people but killing others. Did he even know he was doing it? 

Dean hadn’t wanted to admit what he had seen – the old man standing behind the Reverend when he’d been healed – but there was no denying it. “It’s not him. Something else is doing it for him. That old man I saw.”

“What about him?”

“There’s only one thing that can give and take life like that, Bobbie. It’s a reaper.”

-

Stopping to catch her breath, she felt a chill in the air, but not the kind she was used to. She took this path all the time, but it felt different today.

When she turned around, ready to start running again, she saw a man. His skin was wrinkled and gray and he wore a suit that made him look like he belonged in a funeral home. A small smile crept across his lips, but not a word came out. 

She turned and ran, not wanting to stick around to see what this creep had in mind, but the second her back was to him he appeared in front of her again, causing her to fall to the ground.

She couldn’t move. Frozen in place, he placed his hand on her head. The breath left her lungs, her throat closed, her head pounded like she was being hit over the head with a hammer. Before she could plead for her life, she fell to the ground as a man towns away, glued to a wheelchair and oxygen tank for years, moved and breathed deeply, grateful for a merciful God.

-

“The Grim Reaper?” They’d delved into whatever reaper lore they could find, but Sam still couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“No, no,” Dean replied. “Not the reaper, a reaper.”

She didn’t want to believe it, but it made sense. “Almost every culture in the world has reaper lore.”

“But you said you saw a man in a suit?” The picture didn’t fit.

Dean filed through the papers in front of him and laughed. “What? He should’ve been rocking the scythe and long black robe?”

Sam raised on eyebrow. Well, maybe? “That’s what I always thought and we haven’t encountered one before…shut up.”

Bobbie snickered at the picture of the fictitious Grim Reaper – only on television.

“Look you said it yourself, the clock froze right?”

Nodding, Sam glanced at the page Dean passed him. “Reapers stop time. Plus they can only be seen when they’re comin’ at you, which makes sense when you think about why I saw it and you two didn’t.”

“Maybe.” Sam bit his lip and stared off into the distance, hoping another, less sinister explanation would come out and hit him in the face.

“It has to be.”

“Well how the hell is he controlling it?” Bobbie asked.

“The cross.” Realization dawned on Sam’s face.

“What?”

“There was a cross in the tent. I’d seen it somewhere before, but I wasn’t sure where.” Reaching for a deck of cards from his bag, he rifled through and found the one he was looking for, handing it to Bobbie who immediately passed it to Dean.

“Tarot.”

Hundreds of years back, some priests used magic and even fewer delved into the black magic – the evil shit that no one should mess with. “They’d use it to stave off death, take it, anything.”

“So the Reverend is using black magic to bind a reaper?” Bobbie asked astounded that she’d been so off the mark regarding the man’s character. 

And it was like playing with fire. “Probably, and it’s risky. Like putting a leash on a great white and hoping you can control it.”

Dean strode toward the refrigerator, reaching for a beer before realizing they didn’t have any. “We have to stop Roy.”

“How?” 

Bobbie knew what Dean was thinking but they couldn’t go down that road; they went down that road and there was no returning. 

“You know how.” He said pointedly.

Sam and Bobbie spoke at the same time. “No.”

“No way,” he continued. “We’re not killing another human being.”

“Then how do we stop this?”

Bobbie’s brain was going a mile a minute trying to figure out the best possible scenario here. She felt like she was falling short until it dawned on her. “We break the bind.”

“So we fuck with black magic and hope it doesn’t kill us,” Dean said matter-of-factly. “Great.”

-

When they got back to the tent, Dean went in to distract him so Bobbie and Sam could hopefully find something to break whatever black magic spell was being used to bind the reaper. 

The oldest and youngest Winchesters snuck around the sides of the house looking for some way in that didn’t involve them vandalizing the property. That probably wouldn’t go over too well. 

Inside, Bobbie searched through every drawer she could find while being careful not to make it look like the place had been ransacked. When she and Dean were in the house the day before, it felt warm and inviting, but now it felt cold, like something could be around the corner waiting to attack them at any time. 

She pounded on the creaky floorboards, moved furniture, any place she could think of that their answer might be hiding, she searched, but nothing was showing itself to her. “Bobbie, over here.”

On a bookshelf, Sam found dust coating the shelves with the exception of one spot in front of one book. In and of itself, the book didn’t mean anything, but spells and diagrams and pictures lay inside along with newspaper articles weirdly enough. “Supernatural or not, zealots are zealots apparently,” she huffed.

Each and every newspaper article featured one of the victims that had died over the course of the past year. Marshall Hall was gay. The woman before that was an abortion rights activist. All people that a religious zealot would consider immoral. “Shit,” Bobbie said holding the last article up.

Without another word, the two bolted out of the window through which they’d entered. “Dean,” Sam said, speaking quickly as they ran in the direction of the tent. “The protestor outside the church is going to be the next victim. You can’t let Roy heal anyone.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“No clue,” he replied. “But do whatever it takes.”

-

Hanging up, Dean turned his attention back toward the Reverend, who literally said the one name he’d been silently begging him not to say. “Laila, child. Come on up here.”

“No, no, no.” Not only had he been chosen when she was dying of a brain tumor, but now he had to stop her from being healed. “Laila,” he said, grabbing her gently by the arm before she got to the stage. “Don’t go up there. You can’t.”

“Why? We’ve waited for months.” This was her chance. She could finally be healed.

The Winchester hunter golden rule was not to tell people of the supernatural. He couldn’t say anything. “Something bad is going to happen.”

She whispered, “I’m sorry.” His struggle with his faith and what had happened was his own problem. There was light at the end of her tunnel and she had to make a run for it. 

If he hadn’t already been healed, he would swear his palpitating heart was a sign of an incoming heart attack. As the small flock raised their hands in preparation for Laila’s healing, Dean ran to the back of the tent and distorted his voice. “Fire! Fire! Everyone out!”

In the still of the night, the protestor ran between parked cars, screaming for help. “Where is it?” Sam asked.

The man pointed to the empty space in front of him, breathing the slightest sigh of relief when Bobbie and Sam placed themselves in the reaper’s path. 

Laila’s mother cried out, begging everyone to continue. Dean hated himself, but he picked up the phone and called Bobbie. “I stopped it.”

“It’s still here,” she replied. She couldn’t see it, but the protestor was still panicking, seeing the weathered face around every turn.

It made no sense. Dean had stopped Laila from being healed. Wasn’t that enough? Then he saw her. Sue Ann in the corner of the tent, clutching something. Running to her, he spun her around and saw the cross – the same one that was on the tarot card. 

Dean tried reaching for the necklace. He wanted this all to be over. Winchesters normally swam in guilt, but he was drowning in it and he wanted to put as many miles as he could between himself and this place. But the moment he extended his hand toward her, she screamed. “Help! Help!”

He rolled his eyes as two cops came up on either side of him to escort him out of the tent. When she followed them out, her self-righteous smile made Dean’s skin crawl. “After everything we did for you? Roy healed you and this is how you repay us?”

Dean bore daggers into the so-called devout Christian as the cops ate up her act like Sunday dinner. “You can let him go officers. I won’t be pressing charges. God will do with him as he sees fit.” The condescension radiated off her in waves.

“We don’t wanna see you here again, do you hear?” The cop asked. “We see you again and we’ll put the fear of God in you.” If Dean rolled his eyes any harder, they’d get stuck there. 

Out of their grasp, he turned to see Laila emerging from the tent. “Dean, why would you do that? That could’ve been my only chance.”

“Roy isn’t who he says he is.” He wanted so badly for her to believe him, but he knew his explanation – his true explanation - would only bring anger and resentment. 

She couldn’t grasp why he said what he said. “He healed you?”

“I know, but - look I can’t explain why, but things aren’t what they seem to be.”

With a disappointed shrug, Laila chewed on the corner of her lip and walked away, turning back just once to wish Dean luck. “I really do wish you good luck.”

“Same to you. You deserved a lot more than me.” 

Anyone who said life was fair was out of their fucking minds.

As the three made their way to the car, they walked through waves of disappointed patrons, only to overhear the Reverend and his wife talking with Laila’s mother. “I’ll heal your daughter. No interruptions. I promise.”

Part 5

They needed time to regroup. “So what the hell are we gonna do about this?” Bobbie asked as she paced the floors of the dimly lit motel room. 

Sam fished the book he’d taken from the LeGrange home out of his coat pocket and showed it to Dean. “This is some insanely dark crap. Like Empire dark side. It was written by a priest hundreds of years ago and we we’re right, she was using the binding spell to bind the reaper. To even make that happen she would need blood and bones and a whole host of other dark paraphernalia for summoning.

“What makes someone, a person of faith, turn to dark magic?” Dean flipped through the pages in awe at the depths of depravity. 

Bobbie had barely been paying attention, too angry at the world to be of any help, but the answer to their question hit her smack in the face. “Desperation. She was trying to save her husband. She would’ve done anything. I know I’d do some stupid shit for you two.”

“But this dumb?” Dean asked astonished.

“Yes. And you would too. Don’t deny it, I know you.”

“But Roy’s alive so what was the point in keeping it tied to her?”

Sam fell back into the bed, staring up at the ceiling and hoping beyond all hope that he was wrong about Sue Ann’s motivations, while knowing he wasn’t. “To play God. To get rid of people she sees as immoral.”

Dean brought up that he’d seen Sue Ann wearing a cross similar to the one in the book. “When she dropped it, the reaper backed off.”

“We break the cross, we break the bind?”

“Probably,” Sam replied. “We should destroy the altar too. Just to be safe.”

It was a tentative plan, not completely thought through, but it’s what they had. Dean sauntered over to the window and peaked out through the curtains. “Whatever we do, we need to do it quick. Roy heals Laila tonight.”

As they pulled back up to the LeGrange house later that night, Dean saw Laila’s car. “Shit, she’s already here.”

Bobbie and Sam popped out of the car, but Dean hesitated, his guilt weighing heavily on him. She could’ve sworn she heard Dean ask whether or not they had to go through with this. “We can’t play God, Dean. You said it yourself. And Sue Ann sure as hell can’t either.”

“I know, I just…If Roy had picked her the other day, she’d be healed by now, and if it doesn’t happen tonight, she’d gonna die and it’s my fault.”

“No,” she said, grabbing Dean by the collar and pulling him out of the car. “Sue Ann is the psycho bitch binding a reaper and playing God. It’s her fault. Not yours.”

With a huff, he stormed off, ready to do what needed to be done even though he wanted to flip off the world for their current circumstances. Laila, her mother and a few other churchgoers were already inside the tent, getting ready for what was to be the end of another person’s life. “Where’s Sue Ann?’ He whispered.

“House probably.”

“Alright, I’ll meet you guys later. Get it done. Hey!” He caught the attention of the cops coming down the stairs of the house. “You gonna put that fear of God in me?” A flash of recognition crossed their features before they ran toward Dean, who was already peeling off away from the house. 

A fire burned in his chest as he ran, darting from side to side, under signs and over cars before finally finding a trailer to hide near. A crazy barking dog nearly ratted him out, but he climbed on top of the trailer and hid away until the cops gave up and returned to their posts.

While they were distracted, Sam and Bobbie bolted up the steps and tried to find a way in. “Sam!” She whispered. “Basement!”

Inside the cellar it was dank and dark, lit only by a few candles, but it was enough to illuminate the alter before, decorated in blood and bone and animal carcasses and… “It seems the protestor is no longer on her list,” Sam said, holding the picture up. 

Dean. With a red ‘x’ over his face.

“Shit.”

“I gave your brother life and I can take it away.” Sue Ann appeared as if from the shadows, a dead look in her eyes as they grabbed the altar and smashed it into the ground.

The altar might have been gone, but that wasn’t what mattered and she knew it, running up the stairs and locking them inside. “You have to understand,” she pleaded as Sam and Bobbie pushed against the cellar doors. “The Lord chose me to reward the just and punish the wicked. Your brother is wicked.”

After losing the cops, Dean circled back toward the tent, following the path of retreating lights. The reaper was already here. 

The chill he’d felt before in the motel room returned. He spun around on his heels and saw him, slowly approaching. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was guilt. But Dean found himself frozen in place as the reaper placed his hand on his head. The air retreated from his lungs and he fell to the ground. If this is how he was going to go, he just wanted it to be over with – at least he could die with a little less weight on his conscious. 

Sam busted the window out of the basement floor and pushed Bobbie through. “Go! I’m right behind you!”

Every fiber of her body burned as she propelled herself toward the tent. Sue Ann stood outside, clutching the cross in her hands, her lips swiftly speaking the incantation. Lunging forward, Bobbie caught the edge of Sue Ann’s coat and yanked her back, grabbing the cross with her other hand in one movement before throwing it to the floor. “No!” She screamed in agony as the glass shattered and the blood inside seeped into the grass.

Dean sucked in a deep breath as he was released from the reaper’s hold, simultaneously grateful and guilty that he was once again still alive, while someone else, far more deserving in his eyes, was destined to die. 

“What have you done?” Sue Ann cried. 

“You have no right to play God.” Bobbie had to thwart the urge to kill Sue Ann herself, but it seemed that with the bind broken, the reaper could do as he pleased and like so many before her, the reverend’s wife felt the air ripped from her body. The reaper came to claim what he felt was rightfully his.

She convulsed on the floor, taking one final breath. Bobbie couldn’t force herself to feel bad. “What happened?” Sam asked, returning to see the Reverend’s wife on the ground. 

“Bind is broken. Reaper got his payback.” Without another word, she turned to find Dean. They’d gone against countless supernatural creatures before, all that left scars in some form or another, but this was altogether different – Dean would never forget that he got to live while others had to die – and for that, for that extra guilt that none of them needed, Bobbie refused to care about the fallen woman. 

Dean already made his way back to the Impala. “Ready to go?”

“Yea, you okay?” Bobbie asked.

“It’s all relative.”

-  
The next morning, they packed up again in silence. When it came to the Winchesters, you could try and talk them out of guilt until you were blue in the face, but guilt was guilt and like a snake it slithered around you and choked you out. Bobbie and Sam had said all they could say. It was up to Dean to work through the guilt now. “Did we do the right thing?”

Bobbie felt a pang in her heart. “Yes.”

“Of course, Dean.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

They all felt it. This life was made up of mostly grays, with the occasional black and white thrown in.

A knock on the door surprised them. “Laila,” Dean said. “What are you doing here?”

“Sam called. Said you wanted to say goodbye.” With a look to Bobbie, they exited the room, giving Dean and Laila a moment alone.

“You think that was for the best?” Bobbie asked.

“I do. Her faith is ridiculously strong. If anyone is going to make him feel better right now, it’s her.”

-

A new wave of guilt blanketed Dean when Laila started to talk. “Where are you going?”

“Not sure yet,” he replied on autopilot. “Our work takes us everywhere.” At least that was the truth. 

She told him she went back to see Roy. “Nothing happened,” she replied when Dean asked about her visit with him. “He laid his hand on my forehead but nothing happened.”

“I’m sorry. Really sorry it didn’t work.”

Sue Ann was gone, which he knew, but she’d just learned. “Roy’s a good man,” Dean replied. “He doesn’t deserve what happened to him.” Silence hung between them for a moment. “It must be so jarring to believe in something so much only to have it disappoint you like that.”

“You want to hear something weird?” She smiled. “I’m okay. Really okay. I guess you can’t just have faith when the miracles happen, you have to have it when they don’t too.”

Dean let out a disbelieving huff. “Wow.” Her unwavering belief was inspiring. He didn’t think he could ever get there, but seeing it in someone else was probably the next best thing. So what now?”

“God works in mysterious ways.” She laid her hand on his head as if she was trying to relieve a guilt she knew was there. “Goodbye, Dean.”

“Hey Laila,” he started, “I’m not really much of a praying guy, but I’m gonna pray for you.”

“Well, there’s a miracle right there.”


	6. Chapter 6

Part 1

The city of Chicago was both still as a river and rushing as rapids, both alive and dead. Sometimes, it was full of life, other times it was eerily quiet. On one block, people could be swarming, ready for nights out with friends and family and yet just hundreds of feet away, the streets could reflect only moonlight with occasional leaves and pieces of trash floating over the pavement – still as a graveyard.

As she began down the streets she always walked, she placed the headphones in her ears and turned on her music, stepping to the beat as she went. All she wanted was to get home. Between long hours at work and trying to maintain a social life, she had a difficult time keeping herself sane and health. Being a person was an arduous task, at least that’s what she told her boss. In reality, she would’ve said ‘adulting fucking sucks.’

Turning the corner toward her apartment, she bumped into a man on the sidewalk. They both glanced at each other disbelievingly. She had no idea what his problem was. With an entire sidewalk to walk on, he chose to be right next to her. Was it that much to ask that people not invade her personal bubble on a walk home? Entitled ass.

Without thinking, she went down an alleyway she normally didn’t travel. She had a set path. Maybe she deviated because that guy threw her off. Her skin shivered like she had eyes on her. In the middle of the trash-filled alley, her headphones filled with static. Really? Now? This couldn’t wait like two more blocks? Angry at the sharp cutout, she ripped the earbuds out and stuffed them in her bag. 

The wind whipped up around her, rustling the surplus of garbage in the streets. It was just trash, but something about the life that sprung up around without another soul in sight threw her off and the goosebumps returned.

She could hear her mother’s voice in the back of her head. 

I really don’t like you living all alone in such a big city. She just didn’t want her to leave the house; she wanted to keep her home forever.

I know, Mom, but I love it there.

Just be careful sweetie. Walk home fast at night and always-

Punch in my alarm code as soon as I get in. I know.

With her mother’s words playing repeatedly, she picked up her pace in the direction of her apartment, shivers running over her entire body, the hairs on her arms standing up. 

Back on her normal path, she began to run, unaware of the shadow behind, large and imposing, impossibly black and full of vicious intent. Her lungs began to burn but she made it back to her apartment building, fumbling with the keys for a few seemingly never-ending moments before getting inside and running up the stairs and through her apartment door. 

Once she punched the code in, she breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that her mother managed to convince her to get an alarm system. She wasn’t going to when she first decided to move, but it gave her an extra blanket of protection – a literal security blanket. After throwing her bag and keys onto the wooden table by the television, she grabbed a beer. It had been a long ass day; she deserved a break.

The blinking light on her answering machine called to her so she pressed the button before taking a sip of her drink. “Listen Meredith, it’s Krista. You have to let me know what happened last night.” There were a few other messages, but most of it was garbage and the rest were from Krista.

As she smiled at her friend’s enthusiasm (seriously, it was just a random date, no big deal), the shadow returned, floating along the walls of her apartment until it was behind her own. Long, skeletal fingers snuck up behind her. Just as one shadow melded into another, she arched forward, frozen in fear, with a hole in her chest and her still beating heart in front of her - crimson splattered across the wall nearby.

-  
“This it?” Bobbie asked, staring dead ahead at the innocuous apartment building. It felt nice being in a big city again. Although she had an intense dislike for most people, being in the middle of nowhere, America had been taking its toll on her. She’d been getting so cranky that no matter where they stopped Sam made sure to bring her one of those hostess cupcakes when he returned to the car - food to satisfy the beast and keep it at bay. In some ways, her brothers had a good sense of preservation - at other times not so much.

Nodding, Sam threw the paper to the ground. For a week, a so-called “stealth killer” had been tormenting the area, but the second Sam came across the article he knew it was their kind of case. 

Dean opened the trunk to grab a toolbox as Bobbie stepped out of the car. She really did need to lay off the cupcakes – the costume was tight. “Do we really have to wear these?” Dean asked. He felt like a kid playing dress up, not a hunter. “Dad managed to make it without these stupid costumes.” 

“Yea he did, but these make it easier.” Sam had always liked getting dressed up in the costumes because for a split second, he was someone else – maybe someone normal. 

Bobbie didn’t really mind the costumes either way. They could get annoying especially if she got the shit choice in costume, but it was one of the few fun aspects of the hunter’s life, so she took it for what it was. Dean interrupted her thoughts with a question that brought her back for the better. 

“What was that play you did in high school? Was it Our Town? It was cute.”

“Oh yea!” She exclaimed. Sam was such a theater nerd. “You were George, right?”

Sam blushed. He’d always liked theater for the same reason as he liked the costumes – he was someone else for a time. And if he was in a play that meant that they were actually in one place for a while, which had always been a miracle. “You looked so freakin’ adorable in your pageboy hat and argyle socks.”

“Thankfully, he was wearing more than that.”

“Shut up. Do you want to do this or not, Dean?”

Since the police were already done examining the apartment, the landlady didn’t have any issues letting them in, which made things much easier. It always amazed Bobbie how normal a victim’s home could be. This girl, Meredith she thought her name was, lived in a decent apartment with plain gray walls. Despite its mundane appearance, she managed to make it homey with cute decorations and some pictures of family and friends. 

As she walked in behind her brothers, she caught sight of the large swatches of blood on the carpet and a few other puddles nearby. “So you’re from the alarm company?” The landlady asked. When Dean nodded, she sighed exasperatedly. “Well, your alarms are just about as useless as tits on a bull.” Unfortunately, even the most high-tech of alarm systems hadn’t gotten to the point where they could defend against the supernatural.

“That’s why we’re here,” Sam said, drifting off toward one of the windows. 

Dean gave her his full attention, the alarm company man persona fitting him like a glove for the moment they needed it to. “We wanna look things over and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“You find the body?” Bobbie asked, crouching down to take a closer look at the carpet. There was something off about the blood, besides the fact that there was a lot of it. 

Apparently, it took the landlady a few days to find her. The night of her murder the windows had been locked, the door bolted, the alarm on. No furniture had been overturned. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. “Everything was in perfect condition,” the landlady said softly, her eyes trained on the same place Bobbie was looking. “Except for Meredith.”

So it was Meredith.

“What condition was she in?”

“Pieces. There were pieces of her all over…” She shook her head and choked back the vomit that threatened to cover the floor. “Whoever did this was an absolute maniac. If I didn’t know better, I’d say an animal attacked her.” 

The three siblings shared a familiar look before Sam asked if they could give the apartment a once over just to make sure nothing was wrong. Once the landlady left, Dean pulled the EVP equipment out of his toolbox. “I knew as soon as I saw this story in the paper that it was our kind of case,” Sam said. “Everything’s just way too clean for this to be another human being.”

Bobbie, too, would be surprised if it turned out they were wrong. “Dean, did you find out any information from that cop? What was her name?”

“Oh, uh, Amy-“ 

Bobbie sighed. She knew she shouldn’t have sent Dean to see the lady cop. She would move heaven and earth for her brothers, but dammit if they didn’t have extreme difficulty thinking with their upstairs brains some times. “She’s a Sagittarius. She likes tequila…like, wow, and she’s got this little tattoo on her-“

“Dean-“ Sam interrupted. 

Basically, he hadn’t found out anything they didn’t already know. “Except one tiny detail they kept out of the papers.”

Bobbie raised her eyebrows expectantly. 

“Meredith’s heart was missing.”

Definitely a detail that could send people into a tailspin. “Werewolf?” She asked.

“Lunar cycle is wrong,” Sam replied. “Plus, if it was any kind of creature there would be some physical evidence, but there’s literally nothing except Meredith’s blood.” 

She returned her attention toward the rug and her brothers followed suit. “We need some tape,” Dean said. “There’s something here.”

It took a few minutes to figure out, but there was something. A pattern? A symbol maybe? “It’s like a wonky ‘z’ with a whole in the middle of the slant. Either of you seen anything like that before?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe we’re looking into shit and it doesn’t mean anything,” Dean said, shrugging as he turned to face his sister. 

“When have we ever been that lucky?”

-

As Bobbie and Sam walked into the pool hall, it sizzled with life. People were gathered around tables with friends, drinks in hand and vacant looks already plastered on their faces. Time to let loose. The two Winchesters made their way towards an empty table in the middle of the bar, passing Dean as he chatted up a waitress.

Originally, Bobbie had fought Dean a little about who would get to talk to the waitress, but only to bust her brother’s balls a little bit. Waitress wasn’t her type. “You weren’t even into her were you?” Sam asked.

“Nope. Just my job as older sister to make life difficult for you in the most benign ways every once in a while.”

“I would expect nothing less from you,” he laughed.

At the table, Sam opened their father’s journal, which held all the newspaper articles they had along with any other information they managed to gather about the case. “Unless Dean manages to get something other than the waitress’s number, we’ve got nothing.”

Sauntering back to the table, Dean flashed them a smile, his mind very obviously not on the job. “You get anything,” Sam started, “Besides her phone number?”

Dean feigned shock. “I’m a professional. Frankly, I’m offended that you…um…” His big goofy, dumb grin flashed across his features as he lifted the napkin up. “Whatever. It’s nothing we don’t already no. Meredith worked here as a waitress. Kept to herself. Didn’t do or say anything weird before she died.”

“I guess we’re going to have to dive deeper into the books.”

Pulling out one of the articles, Bobbie tried to talk them through the connections between the first and second victims, but there were none. “Ben Schwartzdom was found in his apartment the same way Meredith was. The doors were locked. His alarm was on.”

“He was a banker, she was a waitress,” Dean finished, eyeing an order of onion rings as they passed the table. “They were from completely separate worlds.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Bobbie watched Sam drift off, his own gaze fixating somewhere at the other end of the bar. Without a word, he got up and she followed until she realized who it was. 

“Meg?”

“Sam! Bobbie! How are you?”

Part 2 

When she met Meg for the first time, Bobbie had a bad feeling. Her being here again just brought it all flooding back – the uncertainty, the general unease. With mysterious kills in the area and Meg showing up in the same town as them at the same time…it couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it?

Reaching out, Meg wrapped her arms around Sam’s neck and gave him a hug. In his body language, Bobbie could tell Sam felt weird too. He tensed and almost instinctively pulled away. “I’m good,” he said hollowly. He wondered if she could see through his attempt at small talk. “I’m visiting friends.”

“I only see your sister.”

“Well, they’re not here right now,” he replied with a short laugh, shuffling awkwardly against the sticky bar floor. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to California.”

Exactly. This was way too weird.

“I did. I came, I saw, I conquered. I met some famous actor there, Jared- something or other. A friend said he was on some show called Gilmore Girls.” 

As her brother and Meg traded a few words, Bobbie stood in shock. Coincidences happened, sure, but not one this big and not to them. She had a million and one questions but stood back to let Sam ask them; if she did, the questions would be laced with readable distrust and if there was actually reason to distrust her, she didn’t want Meg knowing it.

At her back, Bobbie felt Dean place his hand on her upper arm and the two exchanged a glance. Even more so than she and Sam, she and Dean could read each other without any words at all – the benefit of hunting with him for years, just the two of them. One said ‘duck’ the other did it no questions asked, knowing that they’d have each others’ backs. With just a few quick glances, full plans could be formed.

“California got really old, really quickly, so I’m living here for a while.”

“You from here?”

“No, Andover, Massachusetts. I may have been born to a bunch of country hicks, but I’m a city girl at heart.” It was the first thing she said that rang true to Bobbie’s ears. “Gosh, what are the odds we’d run into each other?” 

Probably fairly low, Bobbie thought to herself. So why are you here and why are you fixated on my baby brother?

“Seriously, I thought we’d never see each other again.”

“I’m glad you were wrong,” she said softly. The way she spoke to him made Bobbie’s skin crawl, and it wasn’t some ‘nobody is good enough for her brother’ bullshit. There were plenty good enough for him; this was something else entirely. 

Not at all smoothly, Dean coughed, interrupting the forced and sickly sweet moment that passed between the two of them. “Dude, cover your mouth,” Meg replied.

Sam turned to Dean. “This is my brother, Dean.”

“Oh, so this is Dean?” For a second, Dean smiled. He always liked being the center of attention. “I’ve heard of you – the way you treat your brother like luggage.”

Bobbie’s blood boiled. It was entirely likely that Sam had said something to that effect to her when they’d first met – he and Dean had just been in a blowout fight - but her bringing it up was something else all together. It was none of her business.

“Sorry?”

She even had the gall to keep going. “Why don’t you let him do what he wants? How about you stop dragging him all over God’s green earth to-“

“It’s okay,” Sam interrupted.

She was trying to butter him up and Bobbie hated every second of it.

Excusing himself for a drink at the bar, Dean shot a look to Bobbie, figuring they should give Sam and Meg a moment alone. She would sit at the bar with her eyes glued to them the entire time. No way in hell was she leaving her brother alone in that woman’s clutches.

Once they left, Meg gave her attention back to Sam. “I don’t like the way he treats you.”

“He means well.” And Sam meant it. No matter how much Dean and to a lesser extent Bobbie were pains in the ass they did always had his best interests at heart. 

He needed to get more information on her so he could look into her. Showing up right now didn’t sit right with him. Just before he was going to ask her for her number, she asked him instead and they hurriedly exchanged numbers. “I never got your last name.”

“Masters,” she said, adding quickly, “so you better call. I hope to see you around.” If it weren’t for this unsettling feeling in his stomach, he would’ve appreciated a line like that, but the acid of uncertainty ate away at his stomach. 

With a quick goodbye, Sam walked away and met Bobbie and Dean outside of the bar, walking passed hoards of drunk people who still hadn’t managed to find their way inside the bar. “Who was that?” Dean asked, picking up the pace as he crossed the street.

“I only met her once. Seeing her again, now? It’s weird right?”

“Could be,” Dean said curtly, not giving Bobbie the chance to comment. “What was that comment about? I treat you like luggage? What, were you bitching about me to some chick?”

“No, it was when we were separated and before Bobbie showed up. Now-“

“Well, is there any truth to it? Am I keeping you against your will Sam?”

This was their issue – one of the many anyway – they were always at each other’s throats. They spat words first and used their heads later, which led to instant harm with some good later on if they could get their heads out of their asses.

“No, of course not,” Sam said. “I said that shit in anger when we were separated. Now would you listen?”

“What?” He asked, frustrated.

“Bobbie and I met her once and that was weeks ago. Now she’s here at the same time we are and we happen to meet at the same random Chicago bar just as these possibly supernatural cases are happening? It’s all too coincidental.”

“Yes!” Bobbie replied exasperatedly. It was hard to get words in when they were at each other like that. “I don’t like it.”

“Could be a fluke.” Dean didn’t even believe his own words. 

“Could be, but it never is for us. There’s something weird about this I can’t put my finger on.”

Dean wiggled his eyebrows and smiled. “I bet you want to though.”

Rolling her eyes, Bobbie poked Dean in the shoulder with two fingers. “Really man?”

“I need you guys to look into her. See if there’s a Meg Masters in Andover, Massachusetts. And see if you can find anything about that symbol we found on the floor of Meredith’s apartment.”

“And what will you be doing?” Bobbie asked.

“Watching Meg.”

Dean slapped Sam’s shoulder. “Yea, I bet you will.” 

“That’s not what I-“

“No need to explain. We’re going.”

Bobbie yelled back as she and Dean made their way back to the motel. “Don’t be creepy, Sam! And you, if I ever see you sitting creepily outside a girl’s apartment when it’s not for the purpose of a case I will cut you.”

-

“You think Sam is gonna go for it with that chick?” Dean asked, slamming the door behind him. Honestly, Dean thought he should. He needed to let loose. 

“No fucking way!”

“Why?”

“Because there’s something up with her. Something icky. He knows it too.”

“You two are just overreacting,” Dean said rather unconvincingly. 

If only she was. She didn’t have goosebumps per se, but she felt her skin crawling, like thousands of tiny ants were marching along her arms and legs. Even if no one was watching them at the moment, someone, somewhere, knew what was going on in the lives of the Winchesters. She’d bet her life savings, which at this point included her leather jacket, her gun, and the 43 dollars that sat in her wallet, but still. Dean flicked on the light and she followed behind turning it right back off. “What’s that for?”

“Dean, I told you. I have a bad feeling.”

Rolling his eyes, he sat down at the computer and told her again how much she was overreacting, but his body betrayed him, his stomach doing flips as he pulled up the search engines to start on some research.

A quick search told them what they needed to know about Meg, but the symbol proved harder to research. “We should call Caleb,” Bobbie said, brushing her hair and getting a waft of cigarette smoke that choked her. 

“Dad’s friend? Do you have that little faith in me? I can find what we need. Why don’t you go shower?”

Did she really smell that bad? Dean and Sam were always convincing her to take showers. “Are you sure?” When he nodded, she made her way toward the bathroom and turned on the water. Peeking her head out of the door, she called out. “If you don’t have anything by the time I get out, we’re calling Caleb!”

“Fine! Take a long shower,” he said softly. He wasn’t the research guy, but he could do this while Sam was out getting some. 

About fifteen minutes later, Bobbie stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around her hair, the scent of orange blossom filling her nose as opposed to the smoke. It was the small things in life that she clung to. “See now you smell better,” Dean teased. “And, I found what we’re looking for.”

“I knew you would.”

A slightly awkward silence hung between them. Dean never did know how to take a compliment. For all his outwardly cocky demeanor, he didn’t feel worthy of praise. Sam might have been the research expert of the three of them, but Dean was by no means incapable. 

Dean’s phone rang and broke the silence. “Hey Sam. You outside that poor girl’s apartment.”

“Put it on speaker,” Bobbie chided. One would think he’d be used to this by now.

“No…yes.” Rain was still streaming steadily down the Impala’s windshield when he pulled up to the apartment. This wasn’t what he wanted to be doing, no matter what Dean might have thought. 

“You’ve got a funny way of showing her you like her. You always did. Not at all smooth. Right, Bobbie?”

Not at all. Sammy always looked down at his feet when he was younger and tripped over his words. As he got older, he got a little smoother, but to her he’d always be her dorky baby brother.

“Bobbie, say nothing. Either of you find anything on her?”

“There is a Meg in Andover. Everything you mentioned about her checks out. Now my suggestion is you get your geeky butt out of that car and go invite her to a poetry reading or a chess competition of whatever the hell it is you do.”

“He’s not that bad, Dean,” Bobbie chuckled.

“Both of you can kiss my ass. Anything on the symbol?”

“It’s ancient,” Dean started. “Like 2,000 years B.C. old. Zoroastrian. It’s for calling a daeva.”

Bobbie and Sam asked what the hell that was at the same time. “How do you do that? Say the same thing at the same time in the same way. Stop it. It’s creepy. Anyway, a daeva is a demon of darkness, a shadow demon that can be summoned by other demons. What’s worse is that it doesn’t need a host to attack people. That’s why it’s also called a shadow demon.”

“Well, that would explain why the victims’ apartments looked completely untouched,” Bobbie said. “Because they were. No physical evidence from a shadow.”

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” He asked sarcastically. “They’re savage, animalistic - like demonic pitbulls.”

“Who calls them?” Sam asked, glancing up at the window to Meg’s apartment to find it still empty. “Does anyone need to?”

“Yea, they have to be summoned and considering how ancient these bastards are, whoever is calling it must have a reward waiting on the other side that outweighs the risks because there are a lot of ‘em. They tend to bite the hand that feeds.” Yet another supernatural thing they had no experience with…cool.

“How’d you find all that out?” Sam teased. 

“Hey, you might be the king of lore, but I can get by when I need to, or when you’re otherwise preoccupied.” Sam could hear the smile in his brother’s voice and wanted to punch him. 

“Seriously, Sammy,” Bobbie laughed. “He found the answers while I was in the shower. But we need to get on top of this. That kind of ancient power means someone in this town knows their shit.”

“Now go give that girl a private stripper-gram,” Dean laughed.

“Bite me.”

Dean and Bobbie spoke at the same time. “No, bite her.” 

“Not too hard Sammy!” Bobbie called out with a laugh as Sam hung up on them. “We just did it too. That speaking at the same time thing.”

“Yea, it’s weird. Stop copying me.”

“Stop copying me,” she mimicked.

-

Everything was going according to plan. She had Sam hook, line and sinker. Sure, he and his damn brother and sister didn’t really trust her, but that was good on their part; she wasn’t to be trusted. 

Sam pulled up outside moments earlier, so she let him linger before heading into her bedroom. She knew he’d be watching. She needed him to be watching. The overall picture was playing out agonizingly slowly, but it was what father wanted, so in the meantime she’d have a little fun toying with the human.

Turning on the light, she walked in front of the window, her black bra holding her vessel’s ample cleavage in place. The moment her skin tingled she knew his eyes were on her. Oh the power a simple pair of boobs could hold. Men were so simple; played like fiddles.

When she spun around and pretended not to look, she snickered to herself. Sammy boy got himself caught by a woman and her husband on the sidewalk. She couldn’t exactly make out what they were saying, but undoubtedly he was getting called out for being a pervert.

Though this was fun, she had places to be and quickly pulled the rest of her clothing on before running down the stairs and out of the building. When she saw Sam’s car move out of the corner of her eye, she smiled. She walked toward the trap, assured that the mouse would chase the cheese.

Part 3

Meg, or what Sam thought was Meg, passed in front of the car so he ducked down and waited for her to pass before getting out and following her down a couple of dark alleyways. He wished he didn’t feel so creepy, but such was the job. Every step he took confirmed the suspicions that had slowly been creeping up on him since he’d seen her at that bar.

After a few blocks, Meg passed on old theater and entered a graffiti covered door to what looked like an abandoned warehouse. He allowed the door to shut, waiting a few seconds before he followed after, doing everything he could to remain as quiet as possible. 

When he got inside, he found himself wondering what this place had actually been before it got condemned. Rusty metal surrounded him and the coppery scent of blood filled his nose. Who knew what the fuck had happened in here since it was abandoned? In order to keep out of her line of sight, he found an elevator shaft, at least that’s what it looked like, and cemented his footing, climbing up the rickety metal toward his destination. Each step sounded like a drum to his ears and he cursed himself for being so loud. If she was calling one of those things, he could be dead in an instant.

He kept climbing until he felt like his fingers were going to fall off, but he found renewed vigor when he saw a room with a table in the center - a black magic altar he’d seen many times before. Around the table stood mannequins and rusted bars and barrels full of scrap metal that all left Sam with an immense sense of unease. With rapt attention, he watched her lift a silver goblet and recite an incantation. “I don’t think you should come,” she said. “The brothers, their sister. They’re here. I didn’t know and-“ She got cut off, but Sam couldn’t hear by who. A few seconds later, she assured whatever she was speaking to that she would remain where she was and do as she was asked. “Yes, Sir. Yes, I’ll be there. Waiting for you.”

That couldn’t be the daeva right? Something or someone else had to be giving her instructions and she was using the daeva as a weapon? Whatever was on the other side of that goblet was another wrench in their already unsteady plan.

After ending her conversation, she placed the goblet back on the table and blew out the candles, watching as the wisps of smoke disappeared into the air before leaving. 

With the slamming of the door, Sam climbed through a gap in the rusted bars and underneath a hunk of chains to snake his way into the room. The blood and bones and goblet were all there, but this time the symbol accompanied it, the blood still fresh and wet to the touch. “What the hell?”

-

Sam bounded back into the motel room in a huff, the door slamming against the wall so loudly it startled Dean and Bobbie mid-conversation. The two elder siblings ran outside, not realizing it was Sam at first. “Dude, I gotta talk to you.” Her brothers said simultaneously. Bobbie had no idea what was going on. Dean hadn’t gotten that far yet.

“Sam, what’d you find?” Bobbie asked. Both of her brothers were in a frenzy – more than usual, so something was out of the ordinary, even amongst the supernatural. 

Meg was calling the daeva. “I knew it,” she spat. “I’ve had a bad feeling about her since we met her.”

“Sam’s got a thing for the bad girl, who would’ve known?” Dean teased, hissing as Bobbie smacked him on the back of the head. “What was that for?”

“Not the time, dude.”

Sam rolled his eyes, pacing the floors from the window to the bed as Bobbie and Dean walked around in other directions, all so full of nervous energy that it was either pace around the room or go out guns a blazing and shoot something. “What about the silver bowl?” Dean asked. “What was that about?”

“It was like a witch with a crystal ball. She was talking to someone or something through it.”

“The daeva?” Bobbie stopped in her tracks, muscles tight as her mind moved faster than her body could comprehend.

Sam shook his head. “No. They’re brutal, no holds barred. Whatever she was talking to was someone giving orders, someone she cared about or looked up to. There was a reverence in her voice. And whoever it is will be at that warehouse.”

Just as Bobbie was about to ask Dean what he was planning on telling her before, a look of recognition flashed across his eyes. He bolted across the room to the files he’d somehow gotten from the police officer he drank under the table earlier in the week. “Shit.”

“What?” She and Sam asked simultaneously.

He’d pulled a favor with her – what that meant Bobbie didn’t want to think about. “We missed a connection between the first two victims.”

Sam and Bobbie sat across from him, pulling the files toward them. Bobbie did a double-take between the files and her brother before he spoke. “Where was the first victim from?”

Scanning his files, she saw two words that made her stomach sink: Lawrence, Kansas.

Meredith was adopted and she’d been born in Lawrence too. “What the hell does this mean? Could they have something to do with Mom?”

“Possibly,” Sam sighed, his eyes fixed far off in the distance. He wasn’t allowing the information to penetrate, but not in the same way Bobbie was. She could feel an overwhelming sense of dread, but Sam…he had a hint of hope about him – like this could all be over soon. She only wished she could have his hope. “Meg could’ve been talking to the demon that killed Mom…”

Bobbie placed her head in her hands and swallowed the urge to scream. Granted, she wanted to find the thing that killed their mother, but getting close had always seemed impossible. “But how do the daevas fit in?” 

“No clue,” Dean said confidently. “But I say we go trash the alter, grab Meg and get the information we need out of her.”

“We can’t. She can’t be tipped off. Especially if she has the power of these daevas on her side.” 

When Dean found the information originally, Bobbie had delved deeper. Sam was right. Going after these things all gung ho was a mistake that would get them all killed, even if her overwhelming desire at the moment was to shoot something. If the daevas or Meg had any knowledge of what killed their mother, she wanted it writhing and bleeding and screaming for relief under her fingertips, but she wouldn’t be able to make that dream come true if Meg was tipped off and fled. And if her brothers were hurt in the crossfire it wasn’t worth it. “We need to know what’s showing up to met her.”

Rubbing the back of his head, Dean paced the room yet again. “If this is actually connected to Mom, we shouldn’t do this alone.”

Bobbie knew what he meant, but she had zero interest in talking to their father – not with how he’d left things recently, or ever really. “You call.”

Without another word, she left the room, tears stinging at her eyes as she tried to focus. Sam followed close behind. They needed to start raiding the trunk of the car. None of them really had an idea of what they were up against.

-

Upstairs, Dean dialed John’s phone number again, unsurprised when it went straight to voicemail. “Dad, I’m in Chicago with Bobbie and Sam. The thing we’re up against…” he hesitated, not believing that they could possibly be this close. “We think it might have something to do with Mom. 1435 West Erie. There’s a warehouse there. Please…if you get this, get to Chicago as soon as you can.”

As he hung up the phone, he wondered what would happen if he did get the message, his mind wandering to what Bobbie would do when she saw him again. She was so full of rage and while he was mad, he didn’t understand the depth of Bobbie’s anger for him. 

When his brother and sister returned, Dean shook the uncertainties from his mind, astounded at the sheer amount of weapons they’d brought up. “Got enough? Overcompensating maybe?” Trademark deflection by Dean.

“We have no idea what we’re going up against,” Sam said matter-of-factly. “We should be ready for anything.” He didn’t want this life, but he had great intuition for it. “We have holy water, any weapon we could think of that might even do damage if not kill, exorcism rituals from nearly six different religions. If we don’t know what to expect, we should expect everything.”

All three of them delved into the horde of weapons, cleaning out barrels and ensuring that none of them were stuck. Safeties needed to be off. They needed everything taken care of beforehand. In the midst of it all, there would be no time.

Silence passed between them, the streets outside buzzing with people but bathed in a serene moonlight – like them, world alight with uncertainties and possibilities yet surrounded by the blissfully ignorant. “Big night,” Sam said, breaking the silence. “Nervous?”

Dean avoided looking at either of them but emphatically denied being nervous in the slightest. “You?”

“No.” Sam’s voice went an octave higher than it would normally. He was full of shit. They both were.

When they glanced her way, she spoke her truth. “Of course, I am. And you’re both fucking idiots if you’re not. I raised you better than that.” She wasn’t about to debate with them now – make them admit that they were in fact nervous – they had too much on their plates right now. If they lived through this though, Bobbie planned on having a good talk with them both. Strength wasn’t the absence of fear, it was resistance in the face of it. They were afraid, but neither wanted to admit it out loud.

“What if we found this thing tonight?” Sam asked, a smile crawling across his face. 

Dean clicked back the barrel of the gun he was holding and switched it out for another. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” 

“But seriously, imagine it,” he breathed. “We would find this thing tonight and it’d be over. I could go back to school and start living a normal life again.” 

Normalcy was all Bobbie wanted for him, but she wasn’t so naïve to believe it could be true. “I’d sleep for a month.”

“That too. Then I’d go back to school.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably where he stood. She had Dean wanted the best for Sam, but more than any of them, Dean really held onto the good memories, the times where they felt like family, and he wanted that again. When he hunted with his siblings, he was in his element. “You wanna go back to school?”

“Yea, of course. What’ll you do when this is over?”

“It’s never gonna be over,” Dean replied. “There’ll always be something to hunt.” Sam turned toward Bobbie to try and get her to knock some sense into him but all she could do was shrug. Knowing what they knew, she couldn’t sit back in good conscience while people got hurt; it didn’t matter if she deserved normalcy just as much as her brothers.

Sam couldn’t understand. Maybe his brother and sister were just older so everything felt more ingrained, but he wanted to be normal again. He’d had it and it was glorious. “But there has to be something you want for yourself-“

“Yea, what I want is for you to leave after this is all over.”

“What’s your problem?”

A tear sprang to the corner of Bobbie’s eyes as she continued to fiddle with the guns. They only had each other. Why did they always have to fight? “Why do think we drag you around everywhere?” Dean asked, his knuckles turning white against the grip he had on the dresser. “Why do you think Bobbie and I came to get you at Stanford?”

“Because Dad was missing. Because you wanted help finding the thing that killed Mom.”

“Yea, but it was more than that.”

Bobbie prayed that Dean would actually tell Sam the truth. It probably wouldn’t change anything because if there’s anything a Winchester was it was stubborn, but keeping it all in was bound to make him explode sooner rather than later. “Me, you, Bobbie, Dad…we’ve been through crap, but we’ve had good moments. We could have those again. We could be a family again.”

Bobbie cursed their father for his vendetta. If he’d just let it go, they could’ve had a family – the normal life that Sam wanted, the family moments that Dean deserved. The idea of what could’ve been had it not been for John made her blood boil and she cursed the world that she still loved him.

“We are. But we can’t be what we were before.”

“We could be,” Dean said dejectedly, swallowing against the knot forming in his throat.

Sam’s memories were much more tainted. “I don’t want them to be the same. I’m not gonna live this life forever. Once this is over, you’re gonna have to let me go.”

Dean would fight it. Bobbie would do as he asked, but that didn’t mean she’d like it.

Part 4

It took forever for John to finally let her and Dean hunt on their own, but she’d always been good at convincing. All of her arguments had landed – both of them were amazing shots. They knew everything that John knew about the creatures he’d recorded in his journal and above all, they trusted each other. “I’m not saying that we should go out and tackle a 20-person vamp nest or anything, but dude, Dean and I can handle a werewolf or a wendigo or a couple vamps without you watching over us. We’re going to have to do it eventually right?”

John hadn’t wanted to admit it, but eventually his kids would have to live the life and continue with the family business without his help. “Okay, but I want check-ins twice a day and a call once it’s done.”

“Duly noted.”

Seeing the excitement on Dean’s face at the prospect of going off on their own had been worth the aggravation of convincing their father. He’d sent them to take care of a couple vamps just a few towns over from where he was working on one of their more “serious” cases. 

As they approached the house where the two resided, Bobbie glanced from Dean to one side of the house and then to the other side. Nodding, he crouched, hiding behind the various trees and cars that littered the land outside the home until he arrived where he needed to be. She did the same and through two windows of the house, they signaled their entrance into the house to each other.

Both of the vamps were closer to Bobbie’s entrance so she was immediately overwhelmed by them until Dean pulled one of them off, headbutting him in another direction and away from her. She dropped to the floor and kicked at the girlfriend, giving herself an instant to get her bearing before grabbing the hilt of her machete and strategically swinging for the neck. In one quick swipe, she was down with Dean slicing off the boyfriend’s head just seconds later. 

Within three hours, they buried the bodies and were back in the Impala. “Hey Dad. Dean and I are done. Heading back.”

-

“This is it?” Bobbie whispered.

Nodding, Sam walked inside and showed them the way, pointing upwards at the elevator shaft he’d climbed up before. On their way up, Bobbie made a mental note to work on her upper body more. Somehow she made it up, but every muscle was shaking.

In the same room Sam found, Meg stood in front of the black altar, reciting some incantation that none of them could completely understand, but as they got into the room and snuck back behind some barrels and crates she caught a few words. None of them cheery and full of rainbows. 

This place gave her the creeps. It was hollow and cold with a history behind it that could be seen through the rusted metal and the cracks in the walls. It reminded her of the many, many asylums they’d been in investigating angry sprits. Those were always the worst for her, knowing that doctors would take advantage of sick patients for their own morbid curiosity; it got to her more than anything else. 

Dean handed them both a shotgun and the three of them aimed at Meg, ready as they’d ever be for whatever came next. 

“Come on you three, hiding is a little childish don’t you think?”

Okay, they weren’t ready for that.

“Why don’t you come out?”

None of them had any idea what she was capable of, so they played along, stepping out of the shadows and into the soft lights provided by the candles glowing on the table. “Sam, I have to say this puts a bit of a crimp in our relationship,” she said, smiling.

“I’ve always preferred brunettes anyway.”

Dean’s lips ticked upward into a smile though his eyes remained fixated on their target. “Where’s your little daeva friend?”

“Around. And your piddly little shotguns won’t work on it.”

Bobbie’s smoky rang through the tension between Meg and Sam. “The guns are for you, sweetheart.”

“I knew you didn’t trust me the moment we met at that bus station,” Meg said, giving Bobbie her full attention.

“Not even in the slightest. And I’m usually a great judge of character.”

“It’s really too bad. I mean, Sam is cute and all, but if you’d just been a little more naïve we could’ve had some fun.”

Bobbie would not admit Meg was cute. Never. “I also prefer brunettes. Family trait, I guess.”

“Who are you meeting?” Sam yelled. “What do the daevas want?”

“You.”

The siblings’ eyes darted around the room, watching as sickly shadows emerged in the walls attacking their own shadows. Shotguns were knocked from their hands and they were thrown to the floor like ragdolls. As the blood spilled from her mouth, she felt it tear at the skin on her back and turned to see Sam’s bloodstained face before it all went black.

-

Her eyelids felt heavy as she came to, grunts and scratches filling her ears as her brothers strained against their restraints. Fibrous rope made her wrists and she tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t; she was so tired. If Bobbie had her way, she’d sit right here and sleep for a month, but she didn’t have that luxury.

Yanking against the restraints, she forced herself to open her eyes, glancing quickly between both her brothers. A red bruise faded to purple on the right side of his face while blood trickled down his neck. She could only assume he was scratched up. She pulled against the ropes and snarled when Meg laughed. Pain ripped through Bobbie’s arms. She hadn’t felt it before, but her arms were torn to shreds. 

The moonlight streaked the side of Dean’s face as he turned toward them. He had blood dripping down and into the crook of his lip. “Hey Sam, no offense, but your girlfriend? She’s a bitch.”

“Yea,” Sam replied. He was too exhausted to even pick a fight with Dean right now. “This whole thing…it was a trap wasn’t it?” Meg sat at the edge of a table, enraptured by the siblings finally putting the pieces together. “Seeing you at the bar, following you here, hearing what you had to say. It was all bullshit. And that the victims were from Lawrence?”

Meg’s condescending giggle grated on Bobbie’s nerves. “That didn’t mean anything. It was just to draw you in. And you,” she spoke, eyeing Bobbie, “so cute, trying to break free of those restraints. Play nice. Like your brothers.”

“Oh, don’t call her cute,” Dean said, sucking air in through his teeth. “Bad idea.” The last time someone called her cute in that condescending way she’d kneed them in the balls.

There had to be something more to the victims being from their hometown. “As soon as I get free of these restraints, I will show you how cute I am. You killed those people for nothing.”

“Oh sweetie, I’ve killed a lot more for a lot less.”

Sam ran his tongue over his teeth, grinding his fingers into the rope. 

“Wonderful,” Dean said, “You caught us. It’s Miller time. Woo hoo. Why don’t you just kill us already?”

Bobbie stopped straining against the ropes, bile rising in her throat. “Because the trap isn’t for us,” she replied, teeth clenching in rage. “Dad. It’s for Dad.”

He wasn’t even town so what was her plan? Sit here for days and days while John made his way across the country? Unless he was here…if he was here and he was watching this all play out, she’d kill him. 

“You must be even dumber than you look,” Dean said cockily. “Even if he were in town, he wouldn’t be so stupid. He’s too good for that.”

Meg sauntered over from the edge of the table and kicked Dean’s leg aside, crouching down between them as her index finger slid down the side of his face. “He is pretty good. I’ll give you that. But he has a weakness.”

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

Bobbie couldn’t quite tell if he was deluded or trying to trick Meg. “Us. We’re his weakness.”

“Ding, ding, ding!” Meg laughed. “John Winchester is weak when it comes to his precious children. He lets emotion cloud his judgment. Kind of like you. You’re so full of anger.” She continued to laugh at Bobbie straining against the ropes. 

“Rage,” she corrected. “Anger is just a ember. Rage is a forest fire. Rolling over everything in its path. If I get free of these, you’ll experience it for yourself. And not in the fun way you wanted.”

“I’m from hell, sweetheart. You think I haven’t seen rage?”

“Not mine.”

“You’re intriguing, Bobbie. Too bad we’re almost out of time. I happen to know your father is in town,” she said, licking her lips and making Sam’s skin crawl. “And once he gets here the daevas will rip you all apart piece by piece. Make it slow and painful.”

Dean’s attention snapped to Meg again having previously been entranced by his sister’s rage – one that he’d never really known was there – not truly. She did an amazing job of hiding it. He swallowed against the lump in his throat and caught Meg’s attention again. “It’s gonna take more than a shadow to kill him.”

“The shadow is just what you can see. They’re here right now,” she replied, her silvery voice sending shivers up their spines. Werewolves and vampires are one thing; they can be seen. Even spirits can be seen given the right circumstances. Going up against something you couldn’t see and you didn’t know how to kill? That was another thing all together. 

“Why are you doing this?” Sam growled. “Who for? What deal have you made?”

When she turned to face him, her expression fell, no longer gleeful but serious – much more serious than they’d ever seen her before. “I do what I do for the same reasons that you do what you do. Loyalty. Love.” Bobbie rolled her eyes and felt a tear begin to form in the rope under her fingernail. “Like you do for Mama and Jess.”

“Go to hell,” he snapped.

Crawling over Dean’s knee, Meg passed Bobbie without so much as a glance and slid up Sam’s body, her mouth grazing over his bruised cheek. “There’s no need to be nasty, Sam,” she said, climbing into his lap and whispering into his ear. “I think we both know how you really feel about me. I saw you, watching me, while I was changing in my apartment.” She ran her tongue over his lips and Sam glanced to side, catching Bobbie’s gaze for just a moment. He was playing along. “It turned you on didn’t it? It’s okay. I didn’t mind. I kind of liked it. Come on. Let’s have some fun.”

“Go ahead,” he breathed. “I’m a little tied up at the moment.”

As Meg took advantage of Sam, Bobbie had to fight the urge to rip her own wrists to shreds to tear every blond hair from the bitch’s head. A metallic clank rang out on her other side but she didn’t turn to Dean. Unfortunately, Meg had already heard it, crawling over to take Dean’s pocket knife away and throw it across the room.

When she returned to Sam, Bobbie could see the blood on her lip – the blood from her baby brother. “Were you trying to distract me, Sam, so your brother could get free?”

“No,” he smirked. “No, not at all. I was trying to distract you so I could grab my own knife.”

Lurching forward, Sam headbutted Meg, knocking her backwards and onto the floor before snapping to attention behind Bobbie to cut through the remainder of the rope that held her. 

Her first instinct was to check on Dean, but he jutted his chin toward the altar. “That first, then me!”

They ran across the room and each grabbed a corner of the table, sending it crashing to the floor with all the candles and bones and blood along with it. Before they could even free Dean from his ropes, the daevas crawled along the walls, knocking Meg off her feet to pull her across the floor. 

Bobbie wanted to stay a little longer and revel in the picture of Meg being dragged through the glass window and onto the concrete below, but the likelihood that the daevas would stop at one life was little to none. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” She yelled.

As they ran out of the building and across the street, she saw Meg’s body lying in a pool of blood and glass. Somehow she knew…this was far from over.

Part 5

“We’ve gotta keep out of sight,” Bobbie said, huffing as she led her brothers down various alleyways in the direction of their motel. “If anyone saw us at that warehouse and makes a connection with the body, we’re fucked.” With all the running they did, it amazed her how out of breath they were.

“We plan on staying in scenic Chicago for a while?” Dean asked, clutching the side of his head. Once they were a few blocks away, they slowed down, allowing Bobbie to pull a tissue out of her pocket and wipe the side of Dean’s head. “Would you stop?”

“No. You idiot. You’re bleeding.”

“So are you!” Dean grabbed the tissue from her hand and did it himself, leaving Bobbie to focus on her little brother. Though he protested, he allowed her to take care of him; she was good at it. “Guess the daevas didn’t like anyone bossing them around,” he finally said.

“Guess not.”

“Hey, Sam. Next time you wanna get laid, how about picking someone that isn’t eight shades of crazy?”

Sam winced as Bobbie dabbed a particularly sensitive part of his cheek. The daeva really got him; his cheek looked like it had been torn to shreds, with chucks of skin missing and muscles seeing a moonlight they weren’t meant to see. “Sorry,” Bobbie muttered. “I’ll take care of it when we get back to the room.”

“How about I wrap up your arms first and then you can worry about me?”

“Deal.” With how much she took care of them, she tended to neglect herself.

-

When Dean opened the motel door, he saw a man standing near the window. “Hey!”

Flicking on the light, Sam and Bobbie walked right into their brother and saw the man standing there, heartbeats racing for a split second before they realized who stood before them.

John. “Hey kids.”

Bobbie froze in place, a mixture of gratefulness that he was still alive and anger that he hadn’t called since the last time boiling inside her. She couldn’t feel any one emotion for more than a few seconds before something else took over. She hasn’t wanted to believe that he was in town, not doing anything as they were ripped apart, but here was the proof. 

Dean walked over immediately, wrapping his arms around their father like an anchor to the sea floor as heated tears streamed down Bobbie’s face. Her feet wouldn’t budge from the cold wooden floors and she watched Sam step toward him and breath a sigh of relief.

“Hey, Sam.”

“Hey, Dad.”

When he turned to Bobbie, she bit her lip so hard she almost tasted blood, welcoming the taste of copper as opposed to this. She pushed him away when he tries to hug her. “What the hell are you doing here? Where were you?”

“I just got here.”

She wanted to believe him, but it was hard to. “We were being torn to shreds.”

“Dad, it was a trap,” Dean interrupted. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” The fact that Dean felt he had anything to apologize for made Bobbie wildly angry. 

John nodded and glanced between the boys unable to meet Bobbie’s gaze. “I thought it might be. I got there just in time to see the girl take the swan dive. She was the bad guy, right?”

“Yes,” Bobbie replied, tensing when her brothers addressed him with a ‘yes, sir.’ She couldn’t. She loved her father, but respect was another thing all together and she struggled with it.

“Doesn’t surprise me. That demon has been after me for a while.” 

“What?” Dean exclaimed. Why hadn’t he told them?

“It knows I’m close. It knows I’m gonna kill it. Not just exorcise it or send it back to hell. I’m gonna kill it.”

Sam was awestruck. For all their fighting, his hunting skills were to be admired. “How?”

“I’m working on it.”

Of course he didn’t have a plan. He never had a plan for the big picture. Or if he did, he never let them in on it.

“Let us come with you,” Sam said. “We can help.”

Shaking his head, John outright refused. “Not yet. Try to understand,” he continued quickly upon seeing their disappointed faces. “I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfires.” Bobbie huffed, earning a snap from John. “You can’t possibly understand unless you have kids.”

“What? I don’t? I was never allowed to be a sister; I had to be a mother. If you didn’t want us getting caught in the crossfires, let me fill you in – you failed. Miserably. Us staying out of the crossfire went out the fucking window when you started on this vendetta 20 years ago.”

Trying to diffuse the tension, Sam interrupted. “You don’t need to worry about us.”

“Yes, I do. I’m your father.” Again, he didn’t dare meet Bobbie’s eyes. She had a lot to say and a very loose tongue right now. “Last time we were together, we had one hell of a fight.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“It’s good to see you again. It’s been a long time.”

“Too long.”

Which could have been avoided if you acted more like a father and less like an assassin or a drill sergeant, Bobbie thought to herself. But whatever I don’t have kids so my opinion isn’t worth shit apparently.

When Sam stepped into their father’s arms, she felt a sense of peace. Just because she was angry beyond all belief didn’t mean that Sam couldn’t feel the fatherly love he’d been denied over the past few years.

He let go and attempted to hug her again but something pushed him back into the kitchen cabinets. With a thud, the daevas pinned him by his wrists and knocked Bobbie, Dean and Sam off their feet. 

Every muscle in her body was throbbing with renewed pain but John screamed in pain as scratch after bloody scratch appeared on his skin out of nowhere. He’d put them through hell, but the louder he screamed the harder Bobbie tried to push herself off the ground and toward him. “Dad!” Nothing worked. She couldn’t move. These fuckers had her pinned.

Somehow, Sam got himself free of their grip. “Close your eyes!” Crawling across the room, he grabbed a flash bang out of the bag and used it. With a bright white light filling the room, the shadow monsters couldn’t be seen. 

Smoke began to fill the room, choking them as Sam grabbed the weapons bag and threw it over his shoulders. He coughed uncontrollably as Bobbie and Dean picked John up under either arm and walked him toward the doorway and out of the motel room. They had to be quick. As soon as the flash bang wore out, the daevas could return.

Around the corner from the motel, the Impala was parked in an alleyway. “Okay,” Sam huffed. “We need to go. Hurry, get in!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dean said, blood dripping from his hairline and down onto his tan jacket. “He can’t come with us.”

Sam and Bobbie glared at him, astonished that he out of all of them was saying as much. “What are you talking about Dean?” She asked. “We have to go. All of us have to go.”

After everything they’d gone through to find John again, Sam wasn’t going to give up that easily. “We have to stick together.”

“We almost got Dad killed in there. It’s after him, not us. They’re going to use us to get to him,” Dean said, the words tying themselves in knots as he spoke. “He’s vulnerable with us. He’s stronger without us around.”

Bobbie wanted to smack them all. “ Family is it for us. We’re all going to do what we need for the better of the other. Should we all just walk away from each other and never contact each other again? Would that keep us safe? No!” She felt her voice start to shake and her muscles soon followed.

“Dad, no,” Sam begged. “We’ve been trying to find you for so long. I need…I need to be a part of this fight.”

“The fight is just starting. You’ll have a part to play.” He placed his hand on Sam’s shoulder, desperate to give him the strength he needed to walk away right now. “Trust me. You gotta let me go.”

Why did he make it so hard to trust?

Turning toward her, John grazed the side of Bobbie’s cheek with his thumb. “I know you hate me for it. For leaving you in charge all the time. But keep them safe. You’ve been doing a better job of it than I ever have or could.” With a quick kiss to her forehead, he walked toward his pickup truck and climbed in. “Stay safe, kids.”

After John drove away, they piled into the car and gunned it out of the alleyway and into the thankfully sparse traffic, peeling down side streets until they got to the highway. Sam said nothing and lightly grabbed Bobbie’s wrist, using a bit of gauze from the weapons bag to wrap up her wounds before wiping away a tear from her cheek. 

In the front seat, Dean sat determined. He knew what he had to do. They had a mission and he had orders. Another job. Another focus. That was all he needed to keep moving. She glanced at Sam and saw the disappointment in his eyes. After the fighting they did all those years ago, he was just getting the love he deserved – letting it go again in an instant. 

As the street lights flickered by, mesmerizing her, she wrapped her arms around herself and curled into Baby’s side door. Hearing her father say he was proud, if not in so many words, felt wrong and right at the same time. She so rarely heard from him that she was doing a good job. It was just expected. She wanted to sit back and revel in that feeling, but the anger swirled tighter and tighter. Just because she was good at keeping her brothers safe, didn’t mean that she should have to do it all on her own.

Tears threatened to fall again, when she remembered what Sam had said to her weeks earlier. We’re family. It’ll never be all on you.

If their father didn’t want to stick with them and fight this thing together, at least she had her brothers. Though she felt alone, she wasn’t.


	7. Memories Remain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original Episode in My Supernatural AU: Born to Fire

Part 1

Under the mesmerizing whirr of the ceiling fan, he rolled his eyes and groaned, the constant ringing on the other side of the phone driving him crazy. “Baby, come on! Pick up,” he breathed. 

Again it went to voice mail. In anger, he spun around and threw the phone onto the bed and watched it bounce into the pillows and onto the floor before picking it up to call her back. “Beka…baby.” Now he was getting frustrated. A talk about picking up his phone calls would need to happen. He shouldn’t have to keep calling like this just to get his girlfriend to answer.

Just as he was about to disconnect the call again, he heard the unmistakable lightness in her voice. Why did she sound so calm? He’d been calling for 20 minutes.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” She sighed, frustration lacing her tone. 

“I’ve been calling you for 20 minutes. Why haven’t you picked up?” He felt anger roiling through his body with each word. “What if it had been an emergency?”

“But it’s not,” she replied. “ It never is. I have a big chem test tomorrow, remember? I’m studying.”

Pushing up with his free hand, he got up and kicked his dresser. His Beka was the smartest girl he’d ever known; she’d be fine. “Baby, you’ll be fine. The Velgard party’s tonight. You said you’d go with me.” All he had to do was sound a little pouty and she’d cave. She always gave in.

In her own home, she curled into her desk, desperate to get him to let it go so she could study and not fail this test. Her fucking professor was making it 35 percent of her grade, so if she failed this she was screwed. “I can’t. I need to study.”

“No you don’t,” he snapped, pacing his dorm as he spoke. “You study constantly. You’re going to pass and you know it. Is it me? You’ve been wanting to go to this party for ages and now you don’t wanna go.”

The two of them went around and around, the pencil breaking in Rebekah’s hand before she gave him what he wanted. She had studied. Not a lot, but some. So she’d probably be fine. “Okay, okay. Let me get changed and I’ll be over in 30 minutes.”

“Finally, yes, I gotta have my girl on my arm.”

When she hung up the phone, he pulled his packet of cigarettes out and lit the tip, embers flaring up red before the smoke hit his lungs. He wasn’t exactly a member of the in-crowd, but Beka was a school-wide beauty. Everyone wanted her. But he had her. He’d look like an idiot if he didn’t show up with her after talking up how they’d just celebrated their three-month anniversary. 

After chain-smoking three cigarettes in a row, he pulled on the bracelet Beka had given him for their anniversary, a gift her mother had given to her father more than a decade ago, and checked in the closet for something to wear. Although he’d prefer going in his boxers (the freedom was really something else) it probably wouldn’t be appropriate, so jeans and a t-shirt it was. The first one that caught his eye was the one that Beka hated; she said it was “douchey.” But why should he care? He liked it and that should be all that mattered right? 

As he dipped his head into the closet to pick up the shirt that had fallen on the floor, he felt a breeze flash by his foot, sending his hair on edge. He spun around and saw nothing before something else ran behind him again, sending him spinning and falling into the closet door.

“What the fu-?”

Eyes wide and frozen in fear, he stared up to see someone he thought he’d never see again. “You can’t be here,” he breathed, his heart racing faster than it ever had before. “The last time I saw you, you-“

Cutting him off, the middle-aged woman with the stringy brown hair clasped the glass in her hand and shoved it forward, the sound of squelching blood and gargled breaths somehow eerily loud in the midst of the empty dorm room. He reached for his throat, desperate to stop the blood flow, but it slipped through his fingertips - skin growing cold as the smile on her face grew wide. 

-

Tossing and turning on the couch hadn’t been doing her any good, so instead of thrashing about in futility, Bobbie got up and went for a run to clear her head. She should’ve fought harder to get their father to come with them. No matter what he said, no matter how scared he was of putting his children in harm’s way, it didn’t matter. He didn’t wanna watch them get hurt? Well, fuck it, she didn’t want to watch him get hurt either, or worse, have him get hurt and knowing there wasn’t anything she could’ve done about it because he’d pushed her away.

After sweating her ass off despite the chill in the air, she snuck back into the motel room, which really wasn’t necessary because she was pretty sure a bomb could go off and her brothers wouldn’t wake up. A fifteen-minute shower was all it took to make her feel like a whole new woman. Dean and Sam wouldn’t be as easy to get up and running. Breakfast sandwiches and coffee might work though.

“Oh you really do love me,” Dean said as the unmistakable, thick and mapley scent of bacon wafted into the room. “Bacon, egg and cheese?”

“With double bacon, and ketchup, salt and pepper.”

“Best big sister ever.” 

He took an enormous bite and grinned as a piece of bacon fell out of his mouth and onto the crappy comforter. Although Sam was grateful for the sandwich, the coffee was what made a sleepy smile crawl across his face. “How long you been up?”

“Few hours. Went for a run. Took a shower. Then I figured food would get you two up and running. I think we might have a case.”

Sam took a swig of his coffee and hissed at the heat. “You never get up early. Nightmares?”

“Mmmm.” It was about all her brothers were gonna get, at least for now, and they knew it. “Wanna know what I found?”

Dean shot up from the bed, renewed by the rejuvenating power of bacon and came up to kiss her cheek. “Thanks for breakfast. Now gimme something to do.”

She ran her hand through his hair and pushed him and his bacon-y face out of the way. “Scott O’Reilly. 20 year old student at Kent State University died in his dorm room two nights ago from a stab wound to the neck. Thing is there is absolutely zero evidence that anyone was in the room other than him and his girlfriend and the she has a solid alibi for the time of death. Also, the stab wound is jagged, but the murder weapon can’t be found or even identified.”

“You think this could be our kind of thing?” Sam asked. It just seemed like a severe lack of evidence, not necessarily anything supernatural. 

In her cursory look through the local papers to see if there was anything here to look into, she’d stumbled upon this story. She’d gotten used to passing judgment on the dead, for better or for worse, and something about Scott O’Reilly rubbed her the wrong way. “Nothing in particular. I just have a bad feeling and figured we’re passing through and have nowhere to be just yet so why not, you know?”

“Sounds good to me,” Dean replied, bacon crunching loudly in his mouth. “But since we have nowhere to go, how about we enjoy our bacon – at least let me enjoy mine because my God, do I love bacon.”

“Is it safe to say it’s your favorite thing in the world?” Sam asked, laughing after he finally took a bite of his own sandwich. 

“Top three.”

“And the other two?” He could guess.

Bobbie cut in because Dean had his mouth full. “Whiskey and women. The three change depending on mood.”

With his mouth full, he gave them a thumbs up. “God, this is good.”

Chuckling, Bobbie took a sip of her coffee and fell back on the mattress. “Do you need a moment alone with the bacon?”

-

Rain clouds followed them the entire time they drove to the station. All of them felt the threatening storm, but no one wanted to say it out loud. Just because their father was gone yet again didn’t mean that they weren’t thinking about him and the bigger picture that was looming even closer than the car in the side mirror. 

They pulled up to the station with just enough time to get inside before the downpour came. “Can I please be the senior officer?” Dean whispered.

“So you want me to be your crony?” Bobbie whispered as they rounded the corner. Whenever they met with police, one of them claimed they were training the other two, considering it was rare that officers were partnered up in teams of more than two. 

Bacon had put him in a really good mood this morning and she didn’t have the heart to pull the big sister card on him today. “Okay, fine. Just try not to milk it too much.”

“No guarantees.”

She bit back a retort when an officer asked what they needed help with. “Hi, my name’s Agent Jones, these are my subordinates, trainee agents Flynn and Lennon. We decided to pop in to see what you could tell us about the O’Reilly case.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” the officer replied, shaking hands with Dean, his eyes quickly scanning the badges Sam and Bobbie held out for him. “I’m Officer Bales. Honestly though, I don’t know what I’m going to be able to tell you that you couldn’t already find out from the papers. O’Reilly died of a stab to the throat. We’ve got no murder weapon, no motive, nothing.”

“Do you think we could get any information you have on him?” Sam asked.

“I don’t see why not.” The officer walked them all toward a file room in the back of the station.

“What about his girlfriend?” Bobbie asked not realizing Dean had been about to ask the same question. “Her alibi checks out?”

“Yeah, she was in her dorm room studying for hours before he called her. Her two roommates vouched for her.”

They needed to check her out anyway. Just because she didn’t do it didn’t mean someone connected with her couldn’t have been involved. “We should go interview her anyway. She might be able to point us in the right direction,” Dean added. 

“She has an alibi.”

“I know,” Dean replied. “But she may know if he had any enemies.”

“Scott was a good kid.”

“Look officer, as much as I can appreciate that that’s what you saw, it’s more likely that someone very close to him, like a girlfriend, would know things about him that you wouldn’t.” 

Shrugging, the local townie handed over the files on Scott and gave them directions to his dorm and his girlfriend’s home. “We’ll keep you in the loop if we find anything,” Dean said, saluting Officer Bales with the files in hand. 

“Alright, what do we have…Agent,” Bobbie said, smirking as she leaned over to take a glance at the files. “Your subordinates are dying to take part in the case.”

“I had to. I just had to and you know it.”

“Yea, yea,” Sam laughed, smacking Dean’s arm with the back of his hand. “Anything in there that might point us in the right direction?”

Dean shook his head disappointingly before Sam ripped the files from his grasp. “What the hell, man?”

“There is something.”

“Where?”

“There.” Bobbie glanced near Sam’s finger. There was nothing there. A blank space. 

“Yes, it’s a blank space,” he said, reading their collective minds. “But there shouldn’t be. These types of papers are formatted. If there was nothing there, then there shouldn’t be a blank space. That means-“

Bobbie slipped into the car as she interrupted Sam’s train of thought. “There was something there and it’s been kept off the record.”

“Exactly,” he replied. “And it’s something the police are aware of.”

\----

Part 2

Pulling up to the home Rebekah and her roommates were renting, Sam spied what looked to be one of the girls screaming at her car although no one was there. “Hello,” Bobbie said, flashing her badge. “Everything okay?”

“No!” The girl yelled, spinning on her heels before gasping, not realizing who she’d been bellowing at. “Sorry. No, I’m not okay. The past couple of days have been a living nightmare.”

“Car troubles?”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” She grunted as she turned toward the car. Dean shot his brother and sister a look. He’d interview this girl while they took care of talking to Rebekah. 

With an outstretched hand, Dean stepped forward and shook the girl’s hand. “I’m Agent Jones and I happen to be great with cars if you want me to take a look at it.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bobbie and Sam head up the stairs and into the house. “Now, what seems to be the problem?”

“I literally just had this piece of junk checked out a week ago and now I can’t start it.” 

“Old cars are a lot to keep up,” he said, pointing back toward Baby.

She raised her eyebrows and laughed. “I would imagine. How old is that thing?”

“Excuse me,” he said facetiously as he popped open the hood of her car. “Her name is Baby and she’s a ’67 Chevy Impala. My dad gave it to me.”

“And you’re able to keep that going?”

“Like I said, it takes work, but she’s more than worth it.” As he fiddled with a few things under the hood, he couldn’t really see anything that would cause any issues. “What happens when you try and start the car?”

“It clicks.” Angrily, she plopped herself into the front seat and turned the key in the ignition, the sound grating against Dean’s ears. Oh man, that hurt.

“That’s a broken starter.”

“What’s that?”

“Basically it helps get the gears and everything going inside. If you want we can call you a tow.”

She sighed but agreed. It’s not like she could go without a car for more than a few hours as an overworked, overtired college student. “I need this week to end.”

“So…” He started, searching for her name before realizing he never got it. 

“Delilah.”

“Delilah, what’s happened besides the car not starting?” Dean asked. He needed to kill time until Sam and Bobbie came out and it seemed like she was desperate to vent. 

“The past two days have been hell. I was in the shower yesterday morning and the water got so hot it burned me,” she started, pulling up her one sleeve to show him her still reddened skin. “Then I got out and I stepped on this can that I swear wasn’t there when I got in and tripped backward into the wall. A light bulb exploded in my room last night and this morning while I was making breakfast with Rebekah, the stove nearly went up in flames. Now this.”

Could be nothing, but…it could be something.

-

Rebekah was a sweet girl. And from how she described Scott it was a wonder they ended up together. “So what happened two nights ago?” Bobbie asked. 

She crossed her arms uncomfortably and sunk into the couch across from the two makeshift agents. “I’ve had this enormous chemistry test to study for and it’s my worst subject so all my free time has been dedicated to making sure I don’t flunk. My phone kept ringing and ringing, but I was ignoring it because I had to study. Finally, I got sick of it and answered and it was Scott. There was this party I promised him I’d go to, but I forgot. I needed to study, but he just kept bothering me about it so I gave in. I told him I was going to get changed and be over in a half hour. When I walked in-“ Shaking, her lip began to tremble. “He was covered in blood. His eyes were wide open. I’ve never…”

“Never seen anything like it.” Bobbie knew the feeling well. “Do you know of anyone that would want to hurt him? Was he ever in trouble?”

“I mean Scott could be a pain in the ass and he got into trouble every now and then but do I know anyone that would want to kill him? No.”

“What kind of trouble has he been in?” Sam asked softly. 

“Got into a car accident because he was drunk about six months ago. He’s been reprimanded for underage drinking a couple times, some destroyed property to go along with it, but you have to understand, he’s not – he wasn’t a bad guy.” 

Even Sam could see that Rebekah didn’t necessarily believe what she was saying. “I just…I didn’t think I’d be going through this again so soon.”

“What’s that?”

“My parents died in a car crash around the time Scott and I got together…and now he’s gone too. And I’m all alone.”

As if on cue, her other roommate, Nadiya came up behind her and have her a hug. “I’m here.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she called back. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

“I will.”

The siblings smiled at the exchange between the two friends. Family could be blood or family could be chosen. She wasn’t alone. “Anyway, is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Not right now,” Bobbie replied. “But we might need to talk to you again at some point.”

She was on bereavement leave from classes. Nadiya and Delilah were bringing assignments home with the permission of her professors. With another thank you and a quick goodbye, Bobbie and Sam headed out to see a tow truck picking up Delilah’s car. “You gonna be okay, Delilah?” Dean asked.

Nodding, she thanked him for the venting board and hopped in the Nadiya’s friend’s car to head toward class. “What’d you find out?” He asked, slipping into Baby’s smooth leather seat.

“Sounds to me like they were complete opposites,” Sam started. “Rebekah is a driven college student – determined, not a big party person. Scott was your typical trust fund kid. Not really taking the whole college experience seriously, getting into trouble, that sort of thing. And he got into a car accident around the same time her parents died in one.”

Dean flipped through the files again and gave Sam a quizzical look. “That’s not in the file.”

“Might be the blank space,” Bobbie interjected. “Maybe we head back to the motel and do some digging?”

“Sounds good to me. Let’s grab some food on the way.”

“Dean…it’s been two hours,” she laughed. “Two hours since bacon.”

Had it really only been a couple hours? The clock said yes, his stomach said not so much. “Okay, at least some more coffee.”

“I’m always down for more coffee.”

-

Anxiety and stress and running around like crazy people would probably account for the fact that they all caved and picked up more food anyway. The three of them looked a picture with orange-tipped fingers and computers in their laps. Pair that with the smell of Diet Coke which Bobbie kept burping up and it was a perfect Winchester snapshot. “You’re gross,” Dean sneered. “Why do ya have to do that?”

“Because I like Diet Coke and it makes me burp. Deal with it.”

“How do you get laid? Like ever?”

“I have a great ass. You find anything?”

Sam spun his laptop around and placed his second coffee of the day back on the table. “While you two have been drowning in Doritos, Cheetos and soda, I’ve actually been doing work.”

Bobbie mimicked her little brother. “I’ve actually been doing work.”

“And I’m the baby of the family. Anyway. With a little digging, I found the obituaries for Rebekah’s parents. From the skid marks on the road, the police can tell that they swerved off the road to avoid another car, but they can’t find any evidence of the other car. Scott’s car accident was the same night, but there was no damage from another car on his. He just happened to plow it into a tree after getting drunk and getting behind the wheel.”

It could’ve been a complete coincidence and there was absolutely no connection to the supernatural, or Scott was somehow responsible, directly or indirectly, for her parents’ deaths and they were back and super pissed off. “Does it say exactly how they died?” Dean asked with a mouth full of Cheetos.

“Her father, Ethan, died from…blunt force trauma after smashing his head into the steering wheel,” Sam said, eyes scanning the rest of the article for the mother’s cause of death, “and Vanessa died from blood loss. When they crashed, a piece of glass embedded itself in her neck.”

Dean swallowed back his junk food and slipped to the edge of the bed. “It’s them,” he said confidently. “At least one of them. The stab wound in Scott’s neck could be glass.”

-

“You need to let off a little steam,” Delilah insisted, gently placing her hand on Rebekah’s arm. 

She’d never been much of a partier and after everything that happened all she wanted was to curl up and cry. “You know I don’t party, Del.”

“This isn’t a party. No house, just a bar. And we can even just sit down and eat. If you drive, I’ll have one drink and we’ll just talk and eat and you can get out of the house. It’s not good for you to wallow.”

True. If she stayed in the house, she was just going to continue crying and wondering what she’d done wrong in life to have three people she loved taken away from her in such a gruesome fashion. “Okay, yea. That’s true. One drink though. Two tops. I don’t have the energy to get your drunk ass home tonight.”

“That’s more than fair. Now go get changed.”

Nadiya and Beka passed each other on the stairs. “You’re coming?” Nadiya asked, lighting up when the other girl nodded. “Yay! I won’t be drinking at all either. Just a girls’ night out. You deserve it.”

“Thanks guys. I appreciate you not letting me fester.”

“Got your back, Beka…like got your back, Jack.”

“You’re a dork.”

“I know. Go get changed.”

With Beka getting changed into something a little less drawstring pants and a little more ripped jeans, Nadiya took a quick trip to the basement to do a bit of laundry. It was either that or go to class in two days smelling like hot, wet garbage on a sunny day. 

Thank God Beka was getting out of the house tonight. She’d been through hell and hadn’t let loose at all. Eventually, she’d get her to have a drink or two and just forget for a little while, but right now she just wanted to make sure that one of her best friend’s wasn’t stewing in her own grief for another day all by herself. Even if she drowned in grief surrounded by friends it would be better than the alternative. 

After pushing in every last dirty item of clothing she had, she texted Beka to see if she’d chosen something to wear yet or if she should come upstairs and pick an outfit for her.

B: No, I’ve got this. We’re going really daring tonight with my black tank top, purple flannel and ripped jeans. Just brushing my hair.

With a smile, Delilah started up the steps, looking down at her phone and smiling. As long as Beka had her and Nadiya she’d be okay. They’d get her through this. An abnormal creak in the stairs made her look up. “Who are you?” 

The man’s face was rugged, tired, lines etched in the skin through years of anger but Delilah didn’t recognize him. How had he gotten in? Was Nadiya okay? Was Beka okay? “Who are you?” She asked again.

There was no response save for the flicker of the person in front of her. “What the hell are you?” Her eyes went wide with fear when he disappeared from her sight and she sped up the stairs hoping to get out of the house and into the cool air of the night. Maybe that would smack her awake and keep her from seeing shit that obviously wasn’t there. 

Just as she got to the top of the stairs, she felt a pressure on her chest and then he appeared before her once more, giving her a powerful shove back and sending her flying down the stairs, bone cracking as she hit the wooden steps and barreled into the wall down below.

\----

Part 3

“There’s no way!” She screamed.

Amidst the stark, white hollowness that was the hospital hallway, the Winchesters heard what they thought was Beka. She called Bobbie in a panic, tears distorting her voice as she frantically tried to tell them that someone was to be out to get her. After a few minutes of trying to calm her down, Bobbie got Beka to take a deep breath and explain what happened, giving further credence to the idea that there was a vengeful spirit or two nearby. 

She broke down and ran into Bobbie’s arms, desperate for someone to tell her, or at least give her the illusion that everything was going to be okay. It rarely was, but in this line of work they’d all gotten used to lying every now and then, so she told the young woman what she needed to hear. “It’s okay. Delilah’s okay. You’re okay. Nadiya is okay,” she whispered as she gently patted her head. “Why don’t you come with me, we’ll grab something from the vending machine and you can tell me what happened?”

Beka sniffled and allowed Bobbie to guide her out of the room, leaving Dean and Sam alone to ask Delilah how the hell she’d broken three bones. 

With a bag of potato chips in her hands and a few minutes where nothing went wrong and she could hear herself think, she managed to calm down enough to thank them for coming. She hadn’t known who else to call after the medics arrived. 

“Are you okay if I ask you a couple questions now?” Bobbie asked, resting her hand gently over Beka’s. 

Nodding, she walked over to a nearby armchair in one of the lobbies and took a seat, curling up into the scratchy fabric and staring out the window. “Why does this keep happening around me? Is it me? I don’t get it…”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I was upstairs getting changed. I didn’t see anything.”

“Tell me about everything leading up to it. It’s late, so why were you getting changed?” Bobbie inquired, taking a sip of the stale hospital coffee they’d all picked up on the way in. “How were you feeling beforehand? Did you feel any particular way that made you uncomfortable? No detail is too small.”

Beka took a deep breath and nibbled on the poptart Bobbie’d bought her from the vending machine. “I was getting changed because Del and Nadiya convinced me to go out. I’m not a big party person, but they were going to a bar and wanted me to go with them because they didn’t want me sitting at home alone wallowing in whatever the fuck is going on in my life right now,” she said in one long breath, the air being forced from her lungs with each word until she could barely hear herself talk.

“Just as I was about to go downstairs, I heard something fall and it sounded like it came from the basement, so I ran down and saw Del at the bottom of the stairs unconscious.” Tears flooded her eyes as she pictured her friend – almost dead. “I ran down to check her pulse and then I called 911 and then-“

“And then what?” Bobbie asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me. It’s okay if it doesn’t have anything to do with anything. You can just talk.” Just because she had her brothers had made a habit out of keeping everything inside for better or for worse, didn’t mean that everyone else had to.

For a moment, she hesitated, a fondness washing over her features before the tears threatened it all again. “It felt like my parents were there – my dad more than my mom. I smelled his cologne. I just…” She sniffled and shook her head, along with the notion that anything out of the ordinary could be happening. If she only knew what was ordinary. “I miss them so much, and now Scott is gone and Del is here with three broken bones in her arm and I’m so…overwhelmed.”

“I know,” Bobbie replied, standing up and reaching for Rebekah’s hand. “I know the feeling all too well. But we’re going to figure this out.”

-

“It’s not possible!” Delilah insisted as her heart-rate monitor spiked. “But it’s exactly what I saw.”

Nadiya huffed lightly. Her friends had been through a lot, but insisting that she was pushed down the stairs by the ghost of Beka’s father wasn’t even remotely possible. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Del.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, wondering whether or not to bring up the elephant in the room with the three girls. Out of every rule their father had taught them, top five included not clueing in civilians to the supernatural unless it was absolutely necessary. “Describe it again,” Sam said. “It doesn’t matter how crazy it sounds. Tell us exactly what you felt and describe who you saw.”

“I went downstairs to go a little laundry before we went out. I didn’t want Beka wallowing in crap at home all alone so I convinced her to come out with us.” As she spoke, her heart rate spiked and dipped, her eyes unable to focus on anything in particular. “I texted Beka to see if she was ready and headed upstairs. Halfway up I heard a noise and when I looked up, he was there.”

“Who?”

“Beka’s dad! I never met him. He died before we became friends, but I’ve seen him in pictures and I swear it was him. Chiseled face, but wrinkled. If he smiled, he might not have seemed as imposing, like he could go either way, but he looked like he could kill you with a stare. I thought someone had broken into my house so I asked him who he was. He didn’t respond and then disappeared and when I ran up the stairs to try and get out he appeared again and I felt pressure here.” She touched her own clavicle with her right hand, her dominant one and thankfully the one that wasn’t in a cast. “How could that even be possible? And why would he want to hurt me?”

“There has to be some other kind of explanation,” Nadiya said, placing her hand on Delilah’s arm. “Just relax and let them figure it out, okay?” 

The headstrong girl snuggled the little bunny plushie she’d brought in with her. “Okay, yea.” 

Beka re-entered the room and smiled softly. “Is Ears helping?” She asked.

“Yea, thanks.”

“Is that yours, Beka?” Bobbie asked.

Nodding, she subconsciously grazed her fingers over her necklace. “My parents got it for me when I went away to college. He’s kind of wandered around the house and ended up in Delilah’s room most of the time.”

“Alright,” Sam said, his hand resting on the doorframe, “the three of you should stay here and relax. Bobbie, you wanna stay with them while we check out the house?”

“Sounds good. My partners are going to search through your house for clues. Is that okay with you?”

All three students gave a nod and Delilah finally relaxed back into the uncomfortable looking hospital bed. “What I saw couldn’t have actually been real right?” She asked Bobbie. “I saw…Beka, I saw your dad.”

Beka’s heart dropped and she spun around toward Bobbie. “I felt him. And she’s saying she saw him. Are we crazy?”

“Let’s put it this way,” she replied, “We’ve seen weirder.”

-

With her hold on herself slipping, her husband already forgone, resolute in his desire to do what needed to be done, she gazed out the window in hopes she’d be home soon. He hadn’t been able to get the job done, not fully, so upon their return, she’d take matters into her own hands again.

Beka was all that mattered.

At first, it was just Scott. He wasn’t good enough for her and they’d known it the moment they’d laid eyes on her, but in a flash they were taken from the world, his face in the opposite car at the forefront of their vision, and had been left to watch her slide down a path she didn’t deserve and might not survive. But now…

Everyone around her pulled her in directions she was not meant to walk. They had to be dealt with. She had to be protected.   
Something within her was still tethered to what she’d been, but it flitted in and out of existence like the fire of a cigarette lighter. The memory, like the fluid, slowly fading away until a shell remained - the inside devoid. 

Beka’s wellbeing was all that mattered and she and her husband would do whatever needed to be done, no matter how unsavory, to protect her.

When the roar of a loud engine pulled her from her thoughts, her husband appeared at her side. An old car of some sort held two men in their 20s and they were headed here.

The husband and wife shared a look before disappearing to their daughter’s room, where they felt strongest. 

Without them watching over her, she’d have ended up like them - looming, waiting. Flashes of bright lights and the blaring sound of a horn filled every fiber of her being just before the road ahead gave way to trees and branches. “They shouldn’t be here,” he said, stepping forward to reach toward the doorknob.

She pulled him back. “Only if we have to.”

\----

Part 4

“You really think Bobbie’s okay?” Sam asked as he slammed the door of the Impala shut. 

Dean shrugged, placing his keys back in his pocket. “As much as any of us are okay, I guess. She talks through her feelings more than either of us combined. Can get kind of annoying actually. When she’s ready, she’ll talk.” What he was doing was called verbal diarrhea. He knew it was bullshit. He was just as worried about Bobbie as Sam was, if not more so.

Thankfully, the conversation came to its unnatural conclusion so they could focus on what needed to be done. They didn’t have to pick the lock like they normally did and instead Sam sunk the key into the lock before opening the door to the warm oak floors covered with a hodgepodge of furniture that could only come together through three college students with little money to their names.

“When Bobbie and I were in here before it felt inviting,” Sam whispered, not wanting to draw any attention to himself if there was in fact a vengeful sprit around. “It feels sharp now, like something is waiting in the wings.”

Dean rolled his eyes. He was used to Sam’s tendency to overreact, but it still got to him on occasion. “If something is here why hasn’t it come for us?”

“No clue. What reasons would a vengeful spirit not go after someone?”

“I can’t think of any.”

The brothers stepped lightly through the house to make sure nothing moved out of place. Last thing they needed was the cops on their asses because they’d screwed up a crime scene. 

Sam still wasn’t convinced that there necessarily was anything lurking in the dark corners, but he threw out a theory anyway. “Vengeful spirits had some great wrong done to them and that’s what keeps them here, right?”

“Yea, that’s basic stuff Sammy.”

“So if we’re right about Scott being the reason Beka’s parents died then that explains why he’s dead.”

As they walked through the basement and still came across nothing that pointed them in the direction of supernatural, Dean got frustrated. Pair that with Sam’s seemingly obvious recounting of vengeful spirit law and he was about to explode. “Absolutely, but why go after Delilah?”

“I was getting there. Spirits in general, if they stay too long on this plain without crossing into the next, they become angry. It’s what makes a vengeful spirit. So maybe her parents started to see Delilah as a threat to their daughter.”

“Why though?” Dean asked. “She never did anything to Beka or her parents as far as we know.”

“No, but as they lose their grip on reality and their former selves, smaller things could be seen as a threat. Delilah likes to party and drink. It can’t be a coincidence that she was targeted right after getting Beka to agree to a night out.”

Dean felt the tension start to melt away. Talking about Bobbie and keeping how worried he was to himself had put him on edge, but Sam was starting to make sense. (He’d never tell him though). “Alright, so we need to get a move on and find them because the longer we wait the easier it’ll be to set her parents off.” 

Back upstairs, they clung to walls for a moment as headlights flashed through the window, moving only when the light was faint as an ember in the darkness. “But that still doesn’t answer the question of why they haven’t come after us,” Dean mused. 

Just as Sam was about to take another stab in the dark as to the answer, a loud thud caught their attention, drawing it upward to what they could only assume was Beka’s bedroom. “No one’s here right?” Sam asked for clarification.

“No one human.”

As they tiptoed upstairs the floors creaked beneath their feet. The sound reverberated against the walls and into Beka’s bedroom as Dean nudged the door open. The small bedroom was covered in artwork from various television shows and movies. A post of The Crow caught Dean’s attention. He had to give it to her. She had great taste in movies. 

There was nothing here.

Sam walked toward the corner of the room, searching every nook and cranny for an indication that something was amiss, but there was nothing. “Are we barking up the completely wrong tree? Are we seeing something here because we want to?”

“I don’t know,” Dean sighed. “Honestly, I can’t tell whether we’re seeing something here because we want a distraction or if there’s actually something here.”

Defeatedly, Sam turned to head out of the room when she caught his eye. “Dean, move!”

Dean ducked just as Sam swung the iron rod through the air, slicing into the spirit’s middle. “I guess there is something here.”

As they ran, the father made himself known, disappearing quickly when Dean took a swing at him. “Were they buried or cremated?” 

“I don’t know.”

“How do we not know?”

“There’s no time right now, just move!” 

Ethan and Vanessa popped back up in front of the brothers, staring them down in an attempt to keep them in the house, but unlike the others they’d attacked so far, Sam and Dean were undeterred, swinging in tandem one last time before running back to the Impala. “Okay, they can’t leave the house,” Sam huffed. Ethan and Vanessa stood still in the window.

“Call Bobbie,” Dean snapped. “Figure out whether her parents were cremated or not. How the hell can we not know? This is basic shit, Sam! It’s one of the first things we ever learned, before we even hit double digits.”

Sam glared at his brother as he dialed Bobbie, tapping his foot impatiently against the floor of the Impala. “Sammy? What’s going on?”  
“Her parents are here. They can’t leave the house though. We need to know if they were buried or cremated.”

“You don’t know?”

“No!” He bellowed, apologizing immediately. “No, I’ve been thinking about Dad and where he is and it just slipped my mind,” he finished quietly.

But not so quietly that Dean couldn’t hear him. 

“Can you ask Beka?”

The young woman stirred at the faint sound of her name on the other end of the phone. “What about me?”

“Were your parents buried or cremated?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” She asked, her confusion piercing the silence that had descended upon the halls of the hospital. 

Bobbie snapped to attention. They hadn’t messed up this badly in years. Their dad would be disappointed they’d let emotion get in the way. “Please, just answer the question,” Bobbie replied. “I will explain as best I can, but I need to know.”

“They were cremated,” Beka said softly. 

“You hear that Sam?”

“Yea, I got it,” he responded. “And Bobbie? I’m sorry. I was the one that read that article, I should’ve paid attention.”

“Don’t worry, I get it. Just keep me updated.”

As they hung up the phone, Bobbie turned toward the confused college students. “Why would you need to know about her parents burial plans?” Delilah mumbled. The drugs were numbing her pain, but she’d been so freaked out by what she’d seen that she couldn’t sleep. 

“First thing you need to know…I’m not FBI. None of us are. My name is Bobbie and the guys I’m with are Sam and Dean – my brothers.”

-

“What?” Delilah asked in shock, her heart rate spiking on the monitor. “If you’re not FBI, what are you?”  
Glancing toward Beka, her eyes glazed over with tears, Bobbie tried to explain. “We deal with the supernatural.”

“That’s not real,” she said emphatically. “Delilah was seeing things. I was just feeling something that wasn’t there.”

Bobbie shook her head and attempted to keep the girls quiet as they panicked. She didn’t blame them. Normal people should be freaked out by the idea of vampires or demons or vengeful spirits, and she wished she could tell these girls that she was joking, but there was no way around it now. “You’re not just seeing things. You’re parents are still here, Beka. And they tried to attack my brothers.”

“No, no, no, no, no.” She got up from her chair beside Delilah’s bed and began to pace the room, walking off her nervous energy while simultaneously working herself back up into a frenzy at the reality of her situation. “Why would they be here? Why would they be hurting people? Why would they do this to me?”

“Although we can’t say for certain, our working theory is that they’re doing what they’re doing for you.”

“How?” She asked angrily.

Nadiya shushed her friend, not wanting to draw attention to their room. 

As Beka sat back down in shock, her hands covering her mouth as she attempted to take deep breaths, Bobbie explained the nature of vengeful spirits. “But what would’ve kept them here to start with? What wrong was done to them?”

“Again, it’s speculation because it was wiped from Scott’s police records, but we are inclined to believe that Scott was the person that ran your parents off the road.”

Instantly, Beka turned a shade of green Bobbie hadn’t seen since she was little and took care of Dean when he was puking up fruit loops. “Scott killed my parents?”

“We believe so.”

She broke, tears streaming down her cheeks, her throat going raw with each staggered breath. “No, no, no, my parents wouldn’t do this. Why would they hurt Delilah?”

“That’s the nature of spirits. If they’re stuck on this plane of existence for too long, they lose who they are.” Bobbie turned toward Delilah, whose face was still frozen in shock. “You like to party, drink, no judgment here, I do too, but Beka normally doesn’t. We think that as your parents are losing themselves, they’re seeing threats where there are none.”  
For nearly five minutes, the four women sat in silence, before Beka broke it. “What does any of that have to do with whether my parents were cremated or buried?”

“If they’d been buried, our normal course of action would be to salt and burn their bodies, but because they’re already gone that means that they’re spirits are tied to an object or objects that are keeping them here. Do you have idea what that could be?”

“An object?” She asked in astonishment. “How am I supposed to narrow that down?”

Bobbie took a deep breath and combed her hands through her hair. They nearly got caught and brought into sharp relief how desperately she needed a shower. “Did you give something to Scott that was connected to your parents?”

That’s when it dawned on her. “I…I gave him a bracelet that used to be my father’s. My mother gave it to him for his birthday a few years ago. But I think it’s in evidence. It was broken when I found him.”

That had to be it.

Quickly, Bobbie pulled out her phone and shot the boys a text message. 

B: Father’s bracelet in lockup. Have fun with the break-in.

S: Next time, we get to explain things while you do this.

B: Honestly, I’d rather be there. It kinda sucks when you have to explain the supernatural and tell a girl her parents were killed by her boyfriend.

D: When you put it that way…

B: Exactly. Quit bitching.

“What happens now?” Beka asked.

In this line of work, you really never knew. “My brothers burn the bracelet and we pray that releases your parents bind to this plane of existence.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“I don’t know.”

\---

Part 5

Beka giving the bracelet to Scott had probably inadvertently sent her parents’ disturbed spirits into a spiral. “So her parents already wanted the kid dead and then when their daughter gave him the bracelet, it set their plan for revenge in motion.” Dean climbed over the fence and waited for his brother, making sure to stay out of the camera’s line of sight. 

The local police department had been cooperative so far in the “investigation,” so getting caught on camera breaking into evidence lockup would probably fuck up their rapport for any future supernatural jobs. Plus, evading the police was a full-time job in and of itself and the three of them didn’t need more work. “Probably yea,” Sam said as he hopped down from the chain-link fence. “But that only explains how it attacked Scoot, because their spirits are attached to the bracelet. How were they able to go after Delilah when the bracelet was in lock-up?”

Approaching the door, Dean dipped down with a furrowed brow and began working on picking the lock. “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible that there is more than one object that they’re attached to. It’s rare, but it’s possible. And maybe they just don’t need to be tethered to an object.”

“They always are.”

“Yea, but there’s no way that we know absolutely everything about this stuff. There’s gotta be something out there we haven’t encountered yet.”

Normally, Sam would be the one with that kind of rationale. Dean was compartmentalizing because he was worried about Bobbie. “I knew it. You are worried about her.”

“Of course, I am,” Dean snapped under his breath. “But she’s just like us, she won’t talk until she’s ready. It just so happens that she’s normally ready before us.”

The lock clicked under Dean’s deft movements and they slipped inside. Thankfully, the department had a pretty juvenile security system so Sam had been able to hack it and turn off the inside cameras. The ones trained on the outside of the building were harder because they were owned by the town. “Alright, let’s find their evidence box.” 

Since it was a small town there weren’t a ton of active cases, which meant they found the box within a matter of minutes. “Here it is,” Sam whispered, pulling the bag holding the bracelet parts out.”

Just as Dean was about to reply, the spirits of Beka’s parents appeared before them again. “Okay, so apparently they CAN leave the house!” 

“Run!”  
In the still of the night, Dean and Sam bolted out of the station the same way they came, evading the cameras until they were in the middle of an open field just a few hundred feet away.

Both spirits approached, a fire and liveliness in their eyes despite all the evidence to the contrary. “Okay, Sammy, now would be a good time to light that baby up!”

“I’m trying! Believe it or not it takes a lot of heat to melt metal!” He pulled out the bottle of lighter fluid he had in his coat pocket and doused the metal, pulling the lighter from his pocket and pressing down. Again and again the light flickered into nothingness as Beka’s parents continue their descent. 

Dean watched in futility until the hairs and his neck stood up and caused him to pat down his pockets, praying that he had a matchbox on him. With two quick movements, he slipped the match out of the box and dragged across the side providing them with that all important flame before he dropped it to the ground. “Why isn’t it working?” He asked, pushing Sam away from the spirits.

“I told you! It’s metal! It’s going to take a while!”

“So what the hell are we supposed to do? Keep running around this field like idiots until it heats up enough and hopefully poofs into existence?”

“Sounds like the best plan we have at the moment.”

To anyone driving passed the field, it would just look like two guys chasing each other around an open field. For the locals, it was a place that came to be known as Footballer’s Field, so maybe Dean and Sam were just two former students reminiscing about a long ago football game. If they could see what was actually happening, there’d be a five-car pile up.

After dodging behind trees and sprinting from spirits that could literally disappear and appear at will, Dean heard a crackling just before they burst into flames. “Shit…we need to find a way to burn metal faster for the future.”

-

Before the phone could get loud enough to wake Delilah, Beka and Nadiya, Bobbie slipped the phone out of her pocket. “Sam?”

“Yea, it’s all done. The bracelet is gone and they vanished.”

She sighed in relief, her eyes raking over the three college students. Their world would never truly be the same; with knowledge of the supernatural, nothing could ever be truly normal, but by tomorrow they could hopefully put this all behind them and resume college life. Study, drink, party – the trifecta. “Good, I’ll wait here until you guys get back. Drive safe, okay?” 

“I mean I’m not driving, Dean is so there are no guarantees.”

With a snicker, she hung up the phone and felt her lids get heavy, but apparently Beka and Nadiya had both been awake. “It’s over?”

“We think so,” Bobbie replied. Beka’s eyes were red and puffy after hours of crying, of trying to understand the reality of something so nonsensical. “I’m gonna wait here until my brothers get back, so try and get some sleep. You have tests soon right?” Nadiya had mentioned it in passing before; there was no way Bobbie would have been able to take a test after all this bullshit. 

Just as Nadiya’s eyelids fell and she sank into her chair, Bobbie saw the lights dim and flash and dim and flash. There was an approaching storm, but its lack of pattern had the hairs on her arms standing on edge. “What’s wrong?” Beka asked.

Honesty was the best policy apparently – especially when they were already aware of exactly what had happened. “I don’t know.”

As the words left her mouth, two people appeared before her, their scowls set deep in the creases of their faces, eyes intent on their target. Either these were Beka’s parents or Beka, Delilah and Nadiya were the some of the unluckiest girls on the planet. Ripping the small iron rod from her pocket, she went to swipe at the apparitions before getting smacked into the wall behind her. Her head pounded and her world spun while the two descended upon Delilah again. 

“Beka!”

She stood frozen in place, eyes glistening with tears. Delilah tried to move but couldn’t and Nadiya had backed into the corner, fighting her flight or fight response.

“Beka!”

“What’s happening? I thought this was over!”

“Something else is keeping them here! Is there something of sentimental value in the room?”

She felt a wet spot on the back of her head and pulled her fingers away to reveal a crimson smear. Beka scanned the room until her eyes fell on the plush rabbit her friend had been clutching. “Ears! My parents gave it to me for my seventh birthday!”

Bobbie scrambled from the floor and ripped the plush toy from Delilah’s shaking grasp before watching it flame up, its cinders dropping to the floor. 

Her father blipped out of existence, leaving just her mother fighting against the elements, against the very fabric of existence to stay by her daughter’s side. “Mom! Please!”

When their eyes met, Beka begged, “Please Mom, I’m okay! I just want to move on! I want you and Dad to be happy! I’ll be okay but you have to stop doing this!”

The spirit’s eyes softened. 

“Please, Mom. This isn’t who you are.”

Her eyes closed, and then she vanished.

Beka collapsed to the ground, sobbing when Nadiya came to her side. “It’s over,” she whispered.

She’d been through so much, she couldn’t trust that they were gone – that no one would get hurt anymore. “Is it over?” She asked Bobbie. “Like really over?”

“I’m positive.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because your mother didn’t leave when I got rid of what was keeping her here, but hearing you did. Once they’ve crossed planes they can’t come back. I’m so sorry, Beka.” Knowing your mother died horrifically was one thing, but having to watch your mother turn into something she wasn’t – that had to be hell on earth.

“What the hell happened?” Dean exclaimed, earning him a shush from a few rooms down. 

“Nice of you to show up.” Bobbie rubbed the back of her head. “Apparently, burning the bracelet wasn’t enough, but it’s over now.”

Sam and Dean glanced between the four of them in confusion, but after another round of thank yous, the Winchesters left the hospital and headed back toward the motel room. 

“So what the hell happened?” Sam wondered.

As Bobbie explained, she felt her head began to spin again. She needed sleep.

“I’m just glad it’s over,” Dean said after she’d finished. “Now we can get some sleep.”

Some cosmic entity really hated them because as soon as Dean spoke, Bobbie’s phone began to ring again. “Hello? Dad?”


End file.
